A Place In Time
by Caelestis Kibeth
Summary: OLD VERSION, NO LONGER UPDATED. Check my profile for the much better re-write, with new material!
1. Prologue: Somewhere I Belong

**A Place In Time**

**Prologue: Somewhere I Belong**

**By: Caelestis Dulcis**

_When this began,_

_I had nothing to say,_

_And I'__d get lost in the nothingness inside of me._

_I was confused,_

_And I let it all out to find that I__m not the only person,_

_With these things in mind._

_Inside of me,_

_But all the vacancy the words revealed,_

_Is the only thing real that I__ve got left to feel._

_Nothing to lose._

_Just stuck/hollow and alone,_

_And the fault is my own._

_And the fault is my own._

_I wanna heal,_

_I wanna feel,_

_What I thought was never real._

_I want to let go of the pain I__ve held so long,_

_(erase all the pain __til it__s gone)._

_I want to heal,_

_I want to feel,_

_Like I__m close to something real._

_I wanna find something I wanted all along,_

_Somewhere I belong._

-_Somewhere I Belong_, Linkin Park

I was so down in the dumps when she found me. My whole life had fallen apart right before my very eyes and I felt so far past repair. A lost model of android that we had somehow overlooked during the Cell Games had activated itself and resurfaced. It wasnt like 16, 17, or 18, and it couldnt be reasoned withBit was pure machine, and it was the strongest one that I'd ever seen. It had been programmed to do nothing but destroy and because it didnt have any human components to it, thats all it knew how to do. So, town by town it began to ahnnialate the human race.

I had been waiting impatiently for the day that it would come to Capsule Corp., come to our newly-rebuilt city, so that it could meet me. So that I could destroy it with my own hands like I did the other androids after I returned from the past five years before. I would have dealt with it a long time ago, but I was frightened of leaving my mother alone. She was growing so old, and though it frustrated her immensely, I always felt that she was so fragile. Maybe its because I didnt want to lose the last person I had who meant anything to me.

The day came in the middle of September, on an ironically sunny and cloudless afternoon. I still remember the exact time that showed on my watch when I first felt his overpowering ki: 2:26 PM. I looked up, and sure enough, I could spot him over the horizon, quickly gaining speed and getting closer and closer. And I could almost feel the malicious grin that was so obviously on his face.

It sickened me. It, like the others before it, came only to delight in the killing of innocents and the destruction of happy and peaceful towns. I wasnt going to allow it. I had seen enough killing in my life for ten universes full of people, and I was not about to see any more. I was full of resolve that day, more so than I think I ever have been in my life, and as he landed in the city, for the first time in my life I went Super Saiya-jin 2.

In a truly epic battle that lasted for hours on end, I was able to defeat him-I could see when in close-range that this android resembled a male-but not without a devastating amount of damage done to the city. Skyscrapers and shops lay in ruins, cars were crushed under the debris that had been abundant in the west sector especially, where the most part of the battle had taken place. Homes were caved in or even completely gone... and I felt a wave of horrible nostalgia come over me as I peered down at my nearly leveled hometown. I set out trying to protect this city... I had vowed to myself that I would never have to witness it look like this ever again, and look at what happened. I had failed.

Worn out and in a depression that almost brought me to tears, I flew back towards home half-heartedly. It was then that I saw what I believe to this day to be the worst sight of my life... it is an image that I dont think I shall ever be able to erase from my mind, that will be engraved there for an eternity.

I touched down on the scorched yard gently, as if I were landing on egg shells, to see before me the Capsule Corp., before this time one of the largest houses in the whole city, with the better part of its right side completely taken off. Feeling a familiar stinging in my eyes, I ran with all my might to the remaining half of the building, screaming out at the top of my lungs for my mother, looking around for any sign of her. For hours upon end I would not allow my wearied body to give up, but when my voice finally grew hoarse and I could no longer yell for her, I fell to my knees and let the tears flow.

I knew already that the weapon that had taken my home was a stray ki blast. I knew that my mother had been, by me, instructed to hide in her bedroom, which was located on the far side of right half. What I didnt realize until later that the ki blast that had done the damage, that had disintegrated my only remaining parent's body to naught but ash, was my own. I didn't realize it until I began to walk, lost and alone among the remains, that the signature was unmistakably my own.

After that day, I considered my life finished. I couldn't stay in the city any longer; even though they were going to rebuild Capsule Corporation for me, I couldn't stay there where the memories were so haunting any longer. And so I fled the city, attempted to run away from my old life and all of my problems. I ran to a place where they would never find me, to a countryside miles and miles from the city. I'm sure that Vegeta would scorn me for taking the cowards way out and running like I did, but I gave up long ago trying to be strong like my father was. I just wasn't fit out to be that perfect little boy that he would have wished I was.

I wanted to start my life anew, I wanted to forget everything that had happened before. I wanted to forget my mother, forget my home, forget my whole life. I was no longer Trunks Breifs. I was simply Trunks now. No heritage. Without heritage, I couldnt have killed my mother...Without heritage, I couldnt be a Saiya-jin. I couldnt have experienced such pain in my childhood because of my blood. I couldn't have ever known my father died before I even knew him because I had never had one. Without heritage, I would be happy.

But I found out very soon that I was foolish in thinking that I could simply forget who I was. I was infuriated with myself for even thinking that I could forget my mother, my father, my blood. I realized what a great disrespect I was doing them by running away. This frustrated me to no end. I could not bear to forget my heritage, but I could also not bear the guilt that was laid upon me so heavily for being the cause of my mother's death. So I went to seek another solution.

It was a brisk October evening. I sat on the cliff that I always sat on in the evenings when I was feeling alone or depressed; of course, this was almost every night. I liked to gaze up at the many pearly-white stars in the nighttime sky; my parents were up there, looking down on me. It depressed me to think about it, but still I enjoyed it. I liked to talk to them... for me, it was the only way that I could tell them how sorry that I was.

I dont remember quite when it was-well, I dont remember much about that day at all-but one day I got a thought into my head on the ultimate way to be happy. After three months of being completely alone, I had been able to meditate and I had learned much. The single most important thing that I learned, I believe, is that a mortal existence; alone, depressed, overall unhappy, is the only thing that you have to look forward to while you are still living.

On Christmas Eve, I went out to see my parents stars again, as I always did. However, while usually I would take no baggage with me albeit my emotional burden, this time I carried with me my long sword on my belt. I talked for only a short time that night, and I informed them of my plan. I knew that they werent happy with me-I felt in my gut that I was being spiritually tugged by them-but I ignored it. I knew I had to.

"Mom, Dad...I'm doing this as a present to you...and to myself," my strong words spoke to the night sky. Little white snowflakes dotted my violet hair with white and the biting wind nipped at my bare skin, however I couldnt feel it, even without jacket or scarf. "Merry Christmas."

A thud in the snow resounded throughout the trees and cool metal slid almost apprehensively across my chest, then for a split second a searing sensation permeated my body...then slowly ebbed away as I lay face-up in the snowy world.

She was the last and the first thing that I saw...


	2. Chapter One: Aftermath of a Fated Tryst

**A Place in Time**

**Chapter One: Aftermath of a Fated Tryst**

**By: Caelestis Dulcis**

Pan groaned and rolled over in the crisp white sheets, attempting to escape the sun that shone obnoxiously through the bedroom window. Her movement stirred the figure beside her, and a strong arm wrapped tighter around her waist sleepily to keep her from leaving his side. She smiled and buried her head in his chest, the muscles he wore doing the job of diverting the light from her eyes quite well. At times like these, she loved that her figure was so petite, despite all the fighting she had done in her life, as she could easily fit into his chest.

Without a problem, the young woman found herself soon drifting back into her interrupted slumber. However, Pan had never had tastefully good luck, and the dreams she wished for were fated to come another day instead...

Seconds later--or was it hours; it had seemed like mere seconds to her--Pan was jolted awake once again. This time not as something so gentle as the morning sunshine, but by an invisible form, which was now bouncing on top of her stomach, causing her to growl in annoyance. Throwing the sheets off her head, she came face-to-face with a five-year-old version of herself with cerulean eyes.

Delighted that she had succeeded in waking the woman, the little girl stopped bouncing, and fell forward onto Pan, delivering her a warm embrace. "Kaasan!" she exclaimed jovially and in a high-pitched and very girly voice. "You're up! You're up! You're up!"

Despite the annoyance she felt for being forced from her rest, Pan could not help but smile and return the embrace. She sat up against the headboard of her bed and carried the little girl with her, positioning her in her lap as she cheered for her mother's awakening. "Good morning, Musume," she said, kissing the girl on the forehead in between strands disheveled raven hair.

"Good morning, Kaasan! You and Tousan sleep so long; I had to wake you up!"

Pan frowned and looked at the sleeping man beside her, then back at her daughter. "Hey now, you didn't wake _him _up!" she exclaimed. Musume looked confused for a moment and scratched her head, looking back and forth between her parents, the slumbering Trunks and the awakened Pan. Then, it seemed to come to her suddenly. "But Kaasan, I tried. Tousan didn't move!"

Pan sighed. Trunks was sure a heavy sleeper; not even his daughter's shrieks seemed to do the trick. Her brothers had inherited that as well, which was probably a good thing as she slept in the room in the middle of both of theirs and liked to try and wake up the whole household once she found it fit to wake up herself. Vegeta and Gohan could sleep through a lot. She wasn't so sure yet about their youngest, Kaeida. But there was plenty of time to learn about her for the young mother. The girl had only been born a little less than three months ago and they hadn't had much chance to experience a real pattern in her sleeping habits.

Picking up Musume, Pan set her on her feet on the floor. "Musu, go do your best to wake up your brothers instead, but be sure not to disturb your sister. I don't want her awake until I go in there, alright? I'll find a way to wake up Tousan."

She nodded vigorously and skittered off into the hallway. When she was out of sight--but definitely not out of earshot--the raven-haired woman rolled over on top of Trunks' sleeping form and nibbled lightly on his ear. He fidgeted at the sensation of her gentle bites and the feeling of her hot breath in his ear lobe and she smirked as his fidgeting made him roll over onto his back. Slowly, Pan trailed small kisses from his collarbone, up his neck, and then to his lips. After only a few seconds, he responded by kissing back and placing his hands on either side of her waist.

When she pulled back, his eyelids slid open to observe her contented face, a face which when he first met her thought was nonexistent. But he had thought that he himself could never look like that either...

"What a pleasant awakening," Trunks said, a slight purr in his voice that he knew drove her crazy. She laughed and shared with him another short kiss. He brushed a few strands of ebony hair behind her ear to get a better view of those deep brown eyes that he had fallen in love with at the first sight.

"I would hope so," she replied playfully, in turn fingering his unique violet locks which sorely needed a haircut. "I may have four children, but at twenty-three I would hate to think that I'd lost my touch already. You however, have a birthday coming up...how old will you be?" she teased. "Thirty-one? Thankfully though...I haven't considered you _too _elderly yet."

He chuckled. "I'm not all that old, you're just too young to understand that," he countered.

She ignored the comment. "Do you think you can manage to get up and help me with breakfast now, or are you too old and crippled to move?"

"Hey, I resent that!" he exclaimed, picking her up and jumping out of bed himself just to prove that he wasn't old, even though he knew it was just one of his wife's ongoing jokes. "Now, shall we be getting down to that kitchen?" Instead of putting her down and letting her walk, he kept her tight in his arms like a bride and continued to carry Pan, through the hallway and down the stairs, into the large kitchen on the bottom story of their house. Finally, he got over to a counter and set her down on it, smirking at her as she laughed at the way he acted.

His personality was so attractive, once he let it out. It had taken her a long time break through his rock-solid emotional defenses, but once she had she had unearthed a person unlike any other, a person that she found she couldn't keep herself from falling in love with.

Just as she had jumped down and opened the fridge to see what they had to make for breakfast, three sets of feet could be heard racing down the wooden stairs, and Gohan, Vegeta, and Musume broke into the kitchen at full force. Musume was still in her pink top and white pajama pants, but the former two boys were full clad in their lightweight training uniforms, looking eagerly at their father. They walked over to Trunks and pulled on each a leg of his baggy gray sleep pants.

Trunks trained with his two boys every morning once all three of the men of the house were awake. He originally didn't want to teach his children to fight, but sadly, the world in which their family lived wasn't a safe one. That, mixed with the excitement of the boys to learn to defend themselves, had Trunks coming to the conclusion that it was probably better off that he just give in and do it. The same did not go for Musume.

His little girl had no real desire to engage in battle unless it was really needed, and so he had been thankful not to have to train _all _his children to do so. But...she didn't really need it at all. Musume had been a big surprise for the Saiya-jin parents.

One day, Vegeta had taunted her as they all sat in the front yard, telling her that she was better off keeping to her dolls when she had punched him in the arm for trying to steal her popsicle from her. She got angry and her ki shot up to far above normal levels, alarming her brothers and parents. It was only for a second then, but her eyes flashed turquoise and her hair glimmered gold. The boy had begun apologizing profusely. He knew was a Super Saiya-jin was, and though he didn't know how in the world his older sister, a girl--a _toddler_ _girl_, no less--was one, he knew that he was outmatched if she went at him.

Immediately her transformation was dropped, and the family never saw any of it again, however just in case, Pan had taken up occasionally giving Musume lessons on how to control her energy and things of that sort. Otherwise, the girl was no more than a normal girl. She rolled her eyes at her brothers as they begged for Trunks to get dressed for training and made her way over to her mother to see if she could help any with the breakfast. She didn't like to fight, but she _did _love to be able to do anything with cooking, especially if it was with her mother.

And so begun a normal day in the Breifs household.

Pan set Musume up on the counter and began dumping ingredients into a bowl, then handed the little girl a spoon. "Now, stir this until it's all mixed up together well," she instructed her. "It sounds like Kaeida has woken up, so I'm going to go get her and be right back. Try not to make a mess like last time?" she pleaded the last part. It only took a second for the talented girl to make a floury mess out of the kitchen. She got a smile from Musume, which she took as an okay, and proceeded, into the baby's room.

The room was decorated beautifully in pastel colors and it was probably Pan's favorite room in the house. It was always so serene and looked like it came right out of a movie with its prefect ness. Light white curtains blew in the breeze that came through the window right above the crib, out of which you could see pristine grass and miles of forest. In that crib laid a fussing Kaeida, who seemed to mellow out almost immediately after her mother took her in her arms.

"Good morning, Kady-chan," she cooed to the baby, who in turn giggled and smiled. "Are you hungry? Let's go get you a bottle..."

When Pan got back downstairs, she was thankful to find that her oldest daughter was sitting calmly upon the counter where she had left her with the bowl's contents well-mixed and beside her. While she got a bottle out of the refrigerator and fed the baby, she instructed her little countertop helper on how to make the pancakes on the stove.

When they were all done with breakfast, Musume ran out into the yard enthusiastically. "Come on, come on!" she yelled to her brothers and father. "Come on and eat breakfast! I helped make it!"

Vegeta landed and walked past his sister smirking, "Well, now I really don't want to eat it," he teased, and for it received a rapid and bruising punch in the arm from the girl. "Ow!" he cursed, grasping his arm.

"Man, when are you going to learn to stop messing with her like that?" Gohan asked his twin amusedly. "You know she could kick both out butts at once. We only learned how to go Super Saiya-jin a month ago--she's been doing it since she was three!"

"Yeah, yeah," Vegeta replied, waving it off as he went into the house. He didn't like to admit that he was less powerful than his only slightly older sister. His father had found it amusing that the twin he had chosen to name after his father was the one that was the worst with getting his pride damaged. Then he found that the boy that he had chosen to name after his old friend Gohan had a personality resembling the eleven-year-old boy he remembered from the past. They had planned to name Gohan after Pan's father, but he had died months before she was born and she had never known him. Her mother had kept all information about him from her because she said it was better for her, and had died keeping that information to herself. That sometimes depressed his wife, but she had long since gotten over the fact that she would never know who he was.

Trunks threw a towel over his shoulders and followed his boys, going over the mental notes that he had taken on them during the little warm-up in his head. They were both progressing well, and to his knowledge were the youngest Super Saiya-jins yet (save for his daughter, of course, whom he still classified as a mysterious case). They were definitely turning out to be excellent fighters, fighters that even his father would have been proud of. He smirked, thinking of a Vegeta that was actually pleased. That would be quite a sight.

"Mm, smells good, Pan!" he called to his wife as she placed on the table large plates of pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and pitchers of milk and orange juice. It really was a job cooking for so many Saiya-jins. This would look like an absolute plethora of food to normal people, but Pan knew that on a few mornings she would have to cook a full other breakfast to satisfy her family's enormous appetites. Immediately, Vegeta and Gohan dug in, making their usual mess. Though Musume was hungry as they were, she preferred to take her time eating and be a lady, like her mother, who had also gotten over the habit of eating so grossly. Trunks was getting better at controlling himself, but he was still quite a pig when he ate, making it impossible for him to effectively teach his sons manners. Pan had tried in the past, but their father was who they looked up to more than anyone else, and he was the only one that seemed to be able to get them to listen.

"Thanks Mom, thanks Musu-chan," Vegeta said as he finished in record time. "I have to admit, that was pretty good." Gohan nodded in agreement and they both ran upstairs together to change. The family was going back to Capsule Corp., for the first time seeing it since Trunks had witnessed the destruction of his home. It was no longer a matter of strength as it had been in the past, but now he had to go back. He needed to go to his mother's lab. He needed to see what was there that could help them.

Though the Trunks and Pan made every effort to make every morning as peaceful and normal as this, the times were still bad, and it was a battle sometimes. Even more androids had awakened since he destroyed what he thought was just a leftover--two more, exactly. If possible, they were even stronger than any of the other ones. They had delivered irreparable damage to the world, knocking off more than 9/10 of the population, which just wasn't growing back. In the area, the Breifs family was the only group of citizens even still alive, and they knew that the number of people on the Earth was dwindling quickly. They also knew that they had no chance to right it.

Had it been just Trunks and Pan, they would have given it their all to finish these monsters. But it wasn't. They had appeared when Pan was pregnant with her second set of twins; Kaeida and Gaila. This in itself had made it clear that they had to protect their children, but they couldn't allow themselves to die doing so. The kids were so young; they couldn't leave them orphaned with no one in the world left to take care of them. They were so young, still so fragile, just playthings for those androids.

That very fact was made painfully clear to the family when little Gaila, less than a month old, was taken and killed by them, in front of the eyes of her siblings and parents. It had been an unspeakable tragedy for the family and caused the two to begin to literally race to figure out a plan to get themselves, and most importantly their children, out of this place.

Though he was reluctant to revisit his childhood home and all the horrible memories that he had taken so long to push to the back of his mind, Trunks knew that the only place to escape to was...the past, back to the other timeline. And how else would they do it, but with his mother's old time machine? Pan believed that she could handle the technology--she was a scholar and very intelligent, just like his mother had been--and he believed in her. It was her speed and sharp mind that were what her whole family's future rested on.

He sighed deeply and rested himself on one of the kitchen chairs. Running a hand through his exotic lavender hair, he mentally prepared himself for this trip. For once, his bad day wouldn't be the fault of an android attack… He could feel it; this was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would be.

"You ready for this?" Pan's soprano voice chimed into his thoughts. He glanced up at her for a second, then reached out for her hand and pulled her onto his lap. She smiled faintly and rested her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I hope so…I think so…" he replied, and squeezed her lightly, burying his face in her raven locks and breathing in the fresh scent of jasmine and cherry blossoms. As long as she was with him, as long as he knew that he had this feeling waiting for him…"I am."

"_Trunks_!" the 17-year-old Pan and 16-year-old Bra whined in unison, each of them literally attached to a side of him. He groaned and put a hand to his forehead. His sister did this sort of thing all the time when she wanted him to do something, but he knew Pan better than to believe that this wasn't an act. She'd rather just beat him up until he did whatever she wanted. _Not that she ever _couldhe thought with a smirk.

Bra shook his arm rather violently. "Hey! Answer me!" she said, her voice peeved. "Stop staring out into space! You said that you owed us a day out with you and we demand that we get it! You're the one with the car and the money, so take us shopping!"

"What?" he asked, then a light seemed to pop on in his head. How could he have forgotten? They had made him promise to take them out when he had his last day off, but he had opted for sparring with Goten. They had understood, as it was a rare time when Goten actually took the time away from Paresu to fight, but they hadn't let him forget that he owed them one. "Oh, yeah," he replied to their expectant faces. "Sure, I'll go. By the way, Panny…" he began, looking curiously at the girl on his right arm, "Why are you acting like my sister all of a sudden? Wanting to shop, moaning and complaining until I do what you want…Quite frankly, it's frightening me…Ouch!"

Bra smiled, satisfied that her swift punch to the arm had hurt him. Pan exchanged a grin with her best friend and was about to answer when another voice joined the conversation from behind the trio.

"That's probably a good question…Why _are _you acting like such a girl today?"

"It's nice to see you too, Uncle Goten," she replied sarcastically. "But I would rather you not insult my femininity next time, if it's possible." Sometimes, she wondered why she bothered. She knew that she was always going to be considered a tomboy by her friends because of her youth of being the less-than-delicate one, and the only one of the girls that had chosen to fight. Bra and Marron simply didn't like to do it because it would muss up their hair and because they hated to see both sweat and blood. Just because she wasn't as squeamish, she had grown up taking Goten and Trunks' jokes concerning her ability to be a woman. She prided herself in that she had improved a lot in that department over the years, but even if they took the time to notice, she had the feeling they'd still make fun of her.

"But just so you know, I'm doing it because it's a sure-fire way to annoy this jerk here," she threw a thumb in Trunks' direction, "who dyed my hair pink just because I played a little water balloon prank on him! I _hate _pink! I refuse to let him get by with it, so he's going to hear about it for a _long _time if I can help it."

Goten chuckled in good humor and put his arm around her and looked incredulously at Trunks, "Dyed Pan's hair pink? That wasn't the smartest way to get back at her. I thought you knew better than that by now, man," Pan grinned an 'I-told-you' grin as Trunks smacked his forehead. She gave her Uncle an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

"You tell him. We've been rowing with each other since I was born and he still doesn't realize what's safe to do and what is going to cause me to kill him slowly and painfully," she commented.

"Touche," Trunks said, looking at her mischievously, "I could hardly stand the tomboy version of you, Pan, and now that you're acting so different, I can't stand you all together. Good return." She glared at him and if he weren't so used to it, he might have had to run for cover. That look could _kill_.

"That's such a lie," Bra laughed. "Pan-chan, don't listen to him. Niichan thinks you're just _great_ all the rest of the time. You should hear him at dinner time after days when you guys have gone and done something together or spent the day sparring. You're _all _he talks about! I think Daddy's ready to burst with all this talk about "Kakkarot's third-class granddaughter.""

Pan blushed bright red, and if you could see any details of his face through the swift motion Trunks made to shut his sister up, you would have realized that he was blushing just as red. Goten found the whole thing very amusing himself—even so, he was quite sure that his brother wouldn't really agree—and knew for a fact that what Bra said was the truth. Whenever they weren't fighting—which really wasn't as much now that they had matured a little—he and Pan were like best friends; she often came over to Capsule Corp. to see Trunks instead of Bra, for whatever reason it may be.

"So, where are you guys off to?" Goten inquired to break the tension. He pointed to the keys in his friend's hand.

"We're going to the mall, out to eat, the normal…Wanna tag along? We've one seat left in the car," Pan invited him, knowing that the blue-haired girl beside her would make her a personal deity for doing so later.

As expected, Bra nearly died in excitement and jumped up and down a couple of times before nodding eagerly in agreement "Yeah, come on, Goten! It wouldn't be as much fun without you!"

Pan sometimes wondered why the girl always asked her to keep a secret the fact that she was smitten over Goten when she made such a blatant show of it herself. Of course, Goten never caught on; he was as oblivious as he had been when he was a little kid.

"Sure, sounds fun" he said as Pan and Trunks shared a secret smirk at the sight of Bra grabbing onto his hand and dragging him off towards the car.

"Well, come on, let's go…" Trunks said, coughing nonchalantly to hide the laughter he had over his lovesick sister and completely naïve best friend. He slung his arm casually over Pan's, breaking all previous tension that may have been left from the aforesaid comments. "Shall we depart, milady?" Trunks looked down and asked the young fighter jokingly. He held the car door open for her and bowed, directing her inside with his hand. She chuckled shortly and got slipped into the convertible, returning the friendly wink he gave her as he shut the door and got in himself.

This would be a good day, he could tell…

**A/N:** I dunno, I feel like I left that off a little awkwardly… Anyway, if you're wondering why I didn't start where most of you thought I would (right after the prologue took place), it's because I don't want to get into too much too soon. It's to be a story that's pieces will be discovered and put together over time. Notice I haven't told you where Pan came from yet either. You'll find out about that before you find out about Trunks—at least that's what I'm planning—but that's also supposed to stay a mystery for now. Anyway, R&R!

**Reviewer Responses:**

**Miki23: **Ah, how I know! I –love- Vegeta/Bulma…squee If only Trunks would take the time to realize that, he'd have been set! Groans St00pid Trunks…XD Thanks for the review!

**Lala****-bean: **Thanks for reviewing, Laura! Hope this chapter is a little happier . Sets up the main conflict and all…

**Sidel**** Sisters: **Sorry for the lack of update, Sidel! I had a writer's block for a while. . Keep reading!

**Houser's Girl: **Thanks so much! Be sure to review again! D

**ss****-dragon-lady**I'll try . Thanks for the review!

**Bitten by the kitten: **He's not as melancholic in this chapter; he's the happy-nice-sweet-sexy Mirai Trunks that we all know and love (not to mention there's a little of the happy-nice-sweet-sexIER Trunks of the present!). Thanks for reviewing, and be sure to keep on reading. By the way, j'adore your name! D


	3. Chapter Two: Mishaps of the TimeTravelin...

**A Place**** in Time**

**Chapter Two: Mishaps of the Time-Traveling Kind**

**By: Caelestis Dulcis**

"This place is such a mess…It looks like a tornado has been through here…"

Trunks was only half-listening to his wife's mumbles about the state of his mother's lab. For hours, she had been going through the scattered blueprints and paperwork that littered the consoles and floor. Musume, Gohan, and Vegeta had gotten bored only about fifteen minutes into Pan's search and had decided to see what they could find in the rest of the East Wing of Capsule Corp while they stayed in the North. There were sure to be remnants of his childhood there and thus they had gone on a scavenger hunt for any sort of entertainment or toys they could find.

He however, for the past two hours, had been completely still. He leaned back in a desk chair, his cerulean eyes scanning the many broken pictures hanging on the walls. Three stuck out in his mind in particular; those were the ones that he had been concentrating on.

The first was over the computer, and the one that Bulma had kept closest to her at all times. It was a picture of a very young her and Vegeta, taken in a human photo studio. She had her arms around Vegeta, who seemed to be about ready to shoot a ki blast off at the camera, dared it do anything suspicious. That was one of the only pictures that there was of his father and that it why she had treasured it so much while she was alive.

The second was one of her lying in bed with a lavender-haired infant settled snugly in her arms, sleeping. That was also a very important picture to her; the picture of the newborn Trunks. However, it was difficult to bring himself to look at the photograph, for it brought a grim feeling to his stomach.

Vegeta wasn't in it. He had died a month before it was taken.

He promised himself before he came that he wouldn't cry, and that was the cause for the sudden shift in his eyes to the last picture of interest. If he had allowed his thoughts to settle on his deceased father, it would do him no good, and so he would have to take his mind off away from that fooling photo. This next one though… This one was a good picture. This one he liked.

This certain picture was one that he himself held close to his heart. Standing in front of the Capsule Corp. building was a group of people—Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, Bulma, Tien, Yamcha, Piccolo, Chaotzu, ChiChi, Krillin, and himself—smiling happily (well, most were) and waving at the camera. When he came back to his own timeline, he had given this picture to his mother. She had cried. When he asked her why she was crying, she simply drew a circle with her finger around her past self, Vegeta, and a baby that was in-between the two.

He realized, she wasn't crying out of sadness. But the overwhelming satisfaction that she felt when she realized that she had somehow helped to prevent the hell that they lived in for a future generation—and that she and her son had helped give his past self a father—was enough to make her break down. Deciding that he had been useless for too long, Trunks arose from his seat and carefully lifted the picture from the wall.

Startled by his sudden decision to move, Pan looked up at him questioningly. "What's that?" she asked him, putting down the stack of blueprints she had been holding.

"This is where we need to go," he replied, taking the photo from the broken frame and handing it to her. "We need to get to this timeline… This is where I went the first time to destroy the first group of androids, and if I come back around the same time frame, nothing much will have changed. It'll just make it easier."

She nodded. "I think you're right. But also… if we go too far into the past, we'll be in even more trouble than we already are because we'll have to deal with—Cell, was it?—as well. If we go too far into the future, we might really mess up the flow of time, not to mention some peoples' lives."

Trunks held out a hand to her, and helped her off of the floor. They both contemplated the time machine in the middle of the room. It was a second model that Bulma had been working on prior to her death. It had five seats, the interior the size of a small car, and the controls were much more advanced than the ones that were in the old model that he had used. There wasn't really much work to be done on it itself; their real challenge lay in learning how to use it and replacing any parts that may have become rusty from lack of use.

It sure would be nice if Mom could just pop out of thin air right about now and explain this… he thought wistfully.

"Anata, why don't we start by telling me what you remember of the old version of the time machine? Or better yet, do you know where it's kept? I think it would help us out a lot if we could see it and compare the two," Pan asked him.

"Sure, she always kept it in one of these capsules…" he went over to the biggest drawer in her desk and trailed off as he searched through the plethora of storage devices she used. "Here," he finally concluded, producing a purple and white capsule that read TMV1.5.2BBC.

"Are you sure that's the one?" she inquired as she read over the label. "Your mother's labeling system is sorta odd…"

"It just stands for 'Time Machine, Version 1.5.2, Bulma Breifs, Creator'. That's how she labeled everything, so that she could always find which projects were hers and which ones were Grandpa's."

"I see…" she said, nodding. "Well then, here goes…"

Pan clicked the button on the device and threw the capsule to the floor, where it disappeared in a cloud of grey smoke and re-emerged as a very old, vine-covered time machine.

"Didn't you guys clean this thing after you were done with it, honey?" Pan asked in distaste, throwing a few vines and leaves from the entrance in an attempt to get in. He smirked.

"Nope, not really. We didn't think we'd need it again, and it was broken beyond repair anyway. I think the only thing that still might work is the radio," he answered. "Mom just kept it as a keepsake. She was really proud of this thing."

"I'll bet…" the woman said in awe, sitting down in the one seat and surveying the control panel. "This is a real piece of craftsmanship; I can't believe she got a time machine to work…"

"Yeah, well it wasn't exactly easy."

"I can imagine. Look at the care she must have put into it! It's just…amazing…." Like a little kid with a new toy, Pan began turning a few knobs and toying with the buttons. Trunks allowed her to play around for a few moments before he called her out—and it was quite a fight—of the machine so that they could continue with their 'project'.

"Alright, we've got the blueprints and the machines," he summed up. "So do you think you can--"

Abruptly, his words were cut off by a large booming sound. Pan collapsed backwards into Trunks as the house shook violently. He caught her by her shoulders and steadied the shaken Saiya-jin. They both looked around in a mix of fear and curiosity at the walls and the ceiling as plaster fell down like dust onto their heads. Kaeida stirred and let out a cry from her carrier and her mother went over to get her to calm her down.

"What the hell was that?" Trunks asked, worry evident in his voice.

"I don't know…" she replied. Just then, another, louder boom sounded, causing the house to quake even more dangerously. A thought seemed to cross her mind just then, as she fought to keep her balance, and a look of panic stuck her features. "Trunks… The kids are still over in the East Wing… They might be hurt!"

"Shit," he cursed loudly, and ran out of the basement lab, with Pan and Kaeida close behind him. Pushing up his ki, he ran faster than he had ever run in his life, hoping all the while that nothing had happened. It's the androids…It's those fucking androids…If they even laid a finger on any of my kids, I'll fucking massacre them.

From the ki signatures floating around Capsule Corp., Pan could also tell who was behind the attacks, but unlike Trunks, who she could see was furious beyond anything she had ever witnessed, she was more frightened than anything. She didn't know what she would do if she lost Musume, Gohan, or Vegeta. The thought was unfathomable.

Skidding to a stop at the beginning of the hallway where they said they would be, the young parents frantically searched all the rooms up and down. But no sign of the children.

"They're not here, Trunks!" Pan yelled at him, on the verge of a panic attack. Kaeida cried louder in her arms than she ever had. "Where are my children!? Where are they!? Tell me where they are!" She took his shirt in her fist and shook him for lack of not knowing what else to do. There were tears streaming down her face, and even he was hiding tears under his curtain of lavender hair. He hung his head and squeezed his wife tightly, also at a loss. He knew he should be still searching for them, but it was something nagging in the back of his mind.

It was the house. This house, which held so much sadness for him, was what stopped him. It reeked of discouragement, it made him feel helpless. He couldn't bring himself to look for them; it taunted him, chanting to him that hope was lost. That they were gone.

* * *

"Gohan, I'm scared…" Musume whispered quietly to her younger—yet older in so many ways—brother. She held onto the cloth of his training uniform as if for dear life. With her other hand, she held Vegeta's, wanting to make sure that all three of them were together at all times.

The hallway was dark. She hated the dark.

Having become bored, the three siblings had decided to explore the North Wing instead, and that was when the explosions had gone off. They had cut off the power in that part of the house and left a gaping hole in the side of the room they were in. They had run for it, and found themselves on the basement level, in the pitch blackness, alone.

Gohan didn't stop walking or even look at his sister. Through empathy—a special trait that he had been born with—he could feel it without her saying anything. "I know," he replied, his voice serious.

Vegeta sighed and felt along the walls with his free hand, trying to get a feeling for the hallway they were in. Suddenly, he stopped, his skin running over something like a frame. "Wait," he told them. "There's a door here. Let's go in." They all turned to what Vegeta was feeling and squinted their eyes to allow them to adjust to the lighting. Sure enough, it wasn't long before they could make out the dark outlining of a doorway. There was a plate on the door, but the kanji was advanced and it couldn't be read by any of the young children.

"Wait, be quiet!" Gohan hushed his brother and sister, suddenly tense, and the three fell completely silent. "Lower your ki signatures," he instructed them as quietly as possible after a few moments. They didn't know why they were doing it, but to see the usually happy and carefree boy of four so solemn, they complied without question.

As soon as they did, they heard what he must have heard long before. It was the sound of footsteps—metal clanking against metal—and they were getting louder by the second.

"Let's go!" Gohan whispered, and nodded to Vegeta. His twin took the handle and turned the knob, but to no avail. The door had was locked tight, probably by a security system. Musume whimpered and glanced at her brothers in pure hopelessness, looking for an idea in either of their eyes.

"We've got to break it down," Vegeta told them solemnly. "We have to get in somewhere before they come down here."

"But they'll know where we are! That'll make so much noise!" the young girl said.

Gohan gave off something caught between a growl and a hiss. "Not as much noise as you're making right now, Musume!" His intense glare caused her to back up a step and bow her head in apology. The boy never meant to be rude to his sister, but he was under the stress that they needed him to figure out a plan.

"Should we try it?" he asked, turning to Vegeta, who nodded in return.

"Let's hurry on with it, then…"

With hesitation attempting to be hidden, both Gohan and Vegeta rammed the door with their sides, causing it to fly off its hinges and for an extremely loud clanking noise to resound throughout the hallways. After that sound had rung itself out in their eardrums, they could once again hear that other metallic sound, that ominous metal-against-metal, this time progressing faster.

Musume was the first one in the room, her shaking legs making her for some reason scuttle even faster than she normally would have. The brothers rushed in after her and quickly gathered up the mangled door and pushed it up back against the frame. Vegeta used a white-hot ki blast of some sort—"Where did he learn that?" Musume whispered to her other brother—to weld the frame to the door again, assuring that it would be kept there for at least a short time.

When he finished his work, he found a light switch on the wall and flipped it on and the three children got a good look of their surroundings for the first time.

The first thing they saw was a huge and complex-looking machine sitting in the middle of the room. Scattered around on the floor, only semi-sorted, were papers and blueprints of all sorts. There were a bunch of capsules scattered along the desk, mixed in with tools and assorted other interesting objects.

"I think we're in Grandma Bulma's lab, guys," Vegeta observed, but if the others had heard him, they didn't say anything.

Gohan was preoccupied being the first to admire the machine. He put a small hand up to it and brushed it against the metal, but jumped back when the glass roof flew open at his touch.

"What is this thing?" he asked no one in particular as he regained his wits. "Is this the machine that Mama and Daddy were working on?"

Musume frowned at it and looked at the dirty machine in distaste. "Well, for all the talk they did about how good it was, it sure looks beaten down to me."

"Yeah, I guess so… Maybe it isn't aft-," Gohan stopped mid-sentence as all of the kids' sensitive Saiya-jin hearing picked up on the footsteps, which were now just outside the doorway. In the midst of surveying the lab, they had momentarily forgotten just why they were there.

Musume whimpered for the umpteenth time that day, and Gohan's onyx eyes got a scarily serious look to them. Vegeta stayed indifferent and simply suggested,

"So, I'm thinking that hiding might be a good idea right now," to the others.

Musume nodded wildly and looked around for a place to hide herself. The footsteps had now stopped, and the android was banging on the door, attempting to knock it down with minimal effort. However, it was taking him longer. Vegeta felt proud that the energy he had embedded in the metal was strong enough to hold up this long.

Gohan and his sister searched through cabinets and behind objects, but all of the room was layered in clutter and there was no room for them. Finally, a light bulb went off in the young boy's head and, without a word, he yanked his siblings by the arms into the open door of the time machine.

Being a one-seater, it was rather cramped quarters, but none of them spoke a word about it. Quickly glancing at the control panel, he began to push buttons, more and more as the banging grew louder, trying to find which one would close the capsule's door.

Then, just as they heard—and felt, for that matter—the door fly back off the wall, Gohan brought his hand down on a large, green button, and something happened… The door closed and the whole machine was seemingly engulfed in a white light. With a great and unexpected jerk, all three were immediately thrown back against the hard seat, knocking them unconscious on contact.

* * *

"Woman!" the voice of none other than the Prince of Saiya-jins shook the Breifs' household. The stature-deprived man stood at the top of the stairs to the basement, knowing that his mate was in her lab as usual.

"What do you want!?" Bulma yelled back, annoyed. He smirked at her tone. She was the only one that had ever had the nerve to talk back to him like she did; that was one of the things that he liked about the 'weak female human'. "I'm busy, Vegeta, can't you tell!?"

"Feh, put your things aside, woman! I must know where the brat has gone!"

With his acute audio senses, he could hear her slam her tools onto her desk in frustration over him and he almost snickered. He always got his way…well, almost always. Soon enough, he could see her as she stomped up the stairs, huffy and glaring.

"He is outside, Vegeta, if you would just care enough to look!" she said, exasperated, stopping right before him. "You're out there half of the time anyways; you'd think you'd notice."

"Don't accuse me, wench; I already searched for him outside!" He called her by the rude term, knowing that it ticked her off. "He's not out there."

She gave him a cold stare for a long time while she thought, then a light bulb clicked on in her head. "Oh, that's right…" she said. "He called me an hour ago and told me he was at the mall with his friends. I must have forgotten in the midst of those repairs I had to do on your Gravity Room."

Once again, she glared accusingly at him and for a moment she thought she saw his mouth twitch up into a smirk at her expression. However, if it was a smirk, it was very short, as it didn't take long for her words to sink in.

"Wait, which friends is the brat with?" he asked slowly.

"Goten, Bra, Pan… I think they said they were going to pick up Marron and Uub too…"

"You mean he's with Kakkarot's third-class spawn!?" he exploded. Unlike most people would do in this situation, Bulma didn't even wince at his loud voice. She was used to it. "And my daughter; she's with them too!? Their affiliation with them gives our family a bad name!"

"Oh, stop it, Vegeta," the blue-haired woman replied with a roll of her eyes. "Bra and Panny are best friends and so are Trunks and Goten; you know that. Calm down before you disturb the whole neighborhood…again."

He growled and spun around, ready to stalk away, when she stopped him with her voice,

"Vegeta Briefs, don't you dare think of going and disturbing them on their day out! Trunks needs the time off work to relax with his friends and you know how much Bra loves shopping." --And being with Goten, for that matter, she thought with a little smile—"Let your kids be before they begin to think you don't want them having any fun."

"I _don't_ want them having any fun!" he said in defiance. "At least that brat; I want him training! He's been slacking off his skill-building since you saved him the trouble with that stupid executive job! Saiya-jins aren't meant to live sorting papers, they're meant to fight all their lives!"

"Well, for your information, I need someone to take over the company when I retire and as Bra is too young and is still in high school, I've got no choice but to hand the CEO job over to our son," she said, crossing her arms. "Or would you rather us become poor and live out on the streets? Would that be a more fitting lifestyle for you, your Highness?"

"Feh," he scoffed, gaining a smirk from Bulma. They both knew that he had lost the fight, no matter how he tried to hide it.

"That's what I thought," she said smugly, and without another word to him, the woman walked back downstairs and into her lab.

He turned around and was about to leave to go into the kitchen, when he heard a shocked scream emanate from the direction that his mate had walked in…

* * *

"So, where do you suggest we go next, guys?" Bra asked, looking around at her friends. She walked close by Marron and Uub, who were holding hands with the girl's free hand. Bra and the blonde were the only ones that actually had bags with them, as they were the shop-a-holics of the bunch. Uub had only agreed to come along because Marron was there and it was a chance to hang out with his friends. Trunks and Goten stood slightly behind the three in front, talking and occasionally smiling smoothly at a few of the women who swooned over them as they walked by. Pan herself was right beside Trunks, but she wasn't in his conversation with her Uncle. She was off in her own world, so to speak.

"—Panny?"

The lavender-haired man's voice reached out to her and she shook herself out of her trance-like stare. "What?" she inquired. "I'm sorry, I was out in space."

"He just asked if you were planning to do anything special for your birthday," Goten informed her. "Only a week away, so we figured you must have had some sort of idea about what you were gonna do."

"Of course I am!" she exclaimed. "It's my sweet sixteen; you think me—or Mama and Grandma, for that matter—are going to let that go uncelebrated?"

Goten laughed and looked down at his niece, whom he had to admit was coming close to being about shoulder level with Trunks and himself now. "Yeah, I suppose that Mom came to you with plans months ago, huh?" he asked, knowing how much ChiChi pampered her only grandchild.

Pan nodded. "Of course. In typical Grandma ChiChi fashion, we're going to have a party at our house, with lots of homemade food, friends, and fun." She grinned; that was usually the gist of a party at the Son household.

"Who all is invited?" Trunks asked.

"Well, of course, the usual gang of people are coming. Then there are a few friends of Bra's and mine from school, but only about five or so of them. I hope they won't be too scared of the sort of people they see there."

The guys nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.

"Heh, I'm looking forward to seeing your friends' reactions to Dende and Mr. Popo. I mean, they aren't exactly the most normal-looking people." The lavender-haired man added, "I remember when a couple of Bra's friends came over one day and met my dad's temper. He was angry because he broke his Gravity Room again and stormed into the house, right through her and her group, yelling for Mom and cursing the whole time. Bra-chan said that he broke a couple vases and when he kicked the kitchen chair, it flew into the wall and shattered."

He retold this whole story with laughter. "Apparently, they were so shocked that they ran away out of the house and refuse to come back while he's at home."

Pan grinned. As much as she was over at CC, she was used to Vegeta and his common temper tantrums—she was usually the one he made spar with him to get rid of the anger anyway—and it wasn't all that weird for her to see a few things demolished on a normal day over there. But then again, she was a Saiya-jin, even if only demi so. For a human—not counting people like her mom, grandmother, and Bulma, who had lived with it for a long time—it was probably pretty shocking to see such a strong man and frightening to see him lose his cool.

"Well, I hope they recover soon," Goten commented as they got into the car and prepared to go back home. "I would hate to see Bra lose all her friends because you guys have an extra-temperamental dad like Vegeta."

Bra slid into the seat by Pan and heard what Goten had said. "You're lucky, Panny; your dad acts like a normal person. I love Daddy to pieces, but I'm going to have to have a talk with him if doesn't stop scaring everyone away from us."

She pouted and Trunks had to chortle at his sister. He knew all too well, if Bra wished it to be, Vegeta made it that way. It was different with him because he was the boy—his life had always been stricter—but she was his darling daughter and he would always listen to her. He would do anything for her. He would do anything for Trunks too…just not in the same sense.

The group took off from the shopping mall's parking lot as the sun set slowly behind the horizon, none of them in a hurry to get home really. They were just enjoying each others' company, telling stories and anecdotes, catching up like they hadn't done in a while.

About halfway to Capsule Corp., Bra's cell phone went off loudly, interrupting the friends' conversations. Silencing it, she pressed the button to receive the call and held it up to her ear.

"Moshi moshi; Bra Briefs speaking," she said.

"Bra, darling," Bulma's voice came over the line loudly enough for the people sitting near her to hear, "Where are you and your brother?"

"We're close to home; we just got out of the mall. Why?"

"Well, please hurry home. There's something here that I need you two to see."

Bra's brow creased at the anxiousness in her mother's voice. "Alright Mama, we'll be there soon."

She flipped the phone off and leaned from the backseat so that she was in between Trunks and Goten's heads. "Bro, step on it. We need to get home. Mom wants us there, now."

"Why?" Trunks asked, confused.

"I don't know. She didn't give me any details," she replied, shrugging.

"Alright…" He turned to his companions. "You guys don't mind flying home, do you? Apparently we're having some sort of 'family emergency' or something."

"No prob," Goten replied as Trunks stopped the car and they all got out. "It was nice to go out with you again."

"Yeah, tell Bulma we said hi!" Pan exclaimed as she and her uncle took off in the direction of the rural areas outside of the city.

Marron and Uub also waved their goodbyes in turn and he picked up the blonde gently and took off, flying back in the direction of her house before he went home himself.

Still rather perplexed, but now anxious as well, Bra slipped back into the car and she and Trunks took off at top speed for home…

* * *

**A/N: **Eh…nothing to say …heh. ; Well, actually, I do have something: if you read it, review it! Pretty please!?

**Reviewer Responses:**

**Miki23: **Yes, exactly what I was thinking. Hee

**Fan-Fic-Addiction: **Yes, they have four children, not counting the deceased Gaila. Some background: they only meant to have two kids in the first place. They had Musume, and tried for a second one, which is when they ended up with twins Gohan and Vegeta. Then her second set of twins was purely by accident! I can imagine Trunks' face when he found out. XD

And yes, they pretty much tell each other everything. There are reasons why they trust each other so well, which I'll get into in later chapters.

**Beau Vampa: **Thanks for the review! Keep readin'.


	4. Chapter Three: Imminent Innuendo

**A Place**** in Time**

**Chapter Three: Imminent Innuendo**

**By: SSJ Pan-chan**

"Who are they?"

"You got me…"

"One minute I leave the lab empty and the next minute three toddlers and a time machine show up. I'm really confused."

"That's obvious, onna. We all are."

"Don't give me sarcasm, Vegeta!"

"Feh."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to wait for them to wake up…"

"Yep…Hey, speak of the devil…"

The rest of the family turned towards the blue-haired girl sitting on the bed where they had laid down the three mysterious children and were able to see one pair of cerulean eyes flutter open groggily. A small hand went up to hold the raven-haired girl's head in pain and she groaned sitting up. As she moved, she seemed to stir the other two, boys, they were, and they were soon mimicking their female companion's motions.

"Where are we?" the little girl said, looking around, confused. "What happened to the bad guy?"

Bra was about to respond to her question when she was stopped by one of the boy's voices; the boy with the haircut that looked really strangely familiar to Goku's and Goten's, when he was younger at least.

"I dunno, Musu-chan," he said, moving over so that he was in front of both her and his twin. "Maybe we got him?"

"No way," the other boy said, making a look of hope that had been on his sister's face disappear. "If Mama and Papa couldn't beat it in all those times they tried then we definitely didn't beat it…"

"But we might—"

Finally getting sick of all this nonsensical blabbering, Vegeta exploded. "What in the good world are you brats talking about!?" he yelled. Bulma looked at him in a scolding fashion.

"Vegeta, be nice! You'll scare them!"

"What?" one of the boys on the bed asked. "Um…Ma'am, I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

"I'm sorry, I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to my husband, Vegeta."

"I'm not your husband," the little boy said, becoming more and more confused by this odd blue-haired woman who couldn't seem to discern between her husband and himself.

"I didn't say you were, honey," Bulma said in a sweet yet perplexed voice. "I said I was talking to Vegeta."

"But I'm Vegeta!" he exclaimed, trying to make the crazy woman find sense. She was about to say something, but her mouth closed immediately and she blinked a few times.

"Say what?" the older Vegeta snapped, more angry than fazed apparently. "You can't have that name! Vegeta is the royal name of the Saiya-jin prince! No low-class human brat, or even a Saiya-jin brat is allowed to share that name with me!"

"Hey! Don't be so full of yourself!" the little girl said, coming to her brother's defense. "Our Daddy is the Saiya-jin prince and he gave Vegeta that name! I don't know who you are, but you're not the Prince, you imposter!"

She had by now stood up on the bed and come face-to-face with a boiling-rage-faced Vegeta, trying to stare him down. She didn't know who this man thought he was, but whoever he was, he had no right stealing her Daddy's rightful title!

"Wait a second…" Bulma said, holding out an arm to stop Vegeta from practically lunging at the girl known as 'Musu-chan'. She had something itching in her mind. "How do you kids know about Saiya-jins? And how can your father be the Prince of them. I'm sorry to tell you, but he's not lying. My husband really was the prince of Vegeta-sei."

'Musu-chan' turned to Bulma, liking talking to her much more than to the cocky flame-haired man who she claimed to be her husband. Her tone was much gentler and patient. "We are Saiya-jins, silly! But I'm not lying either; our daddy is the prince and our mommy is the princess. Actually, they're the king and queen, I guess. Daddy says that Grandpa died a long time ago and Grandma always told him to be proud of being a prince because Grandpa would have wanted him to be, just like he was."

"Uh…where exactly do you guys come from; some alternate universe or something?" Trunks finally spoke up. He straightened himself up, lifting himself away from the wall he had been leaning against. 'Musu-chan' looked up to him and her eyes widened, not having noticed him in the room before for his lack of input into the conversation. He looked at her oddly. "What?" he asked to her gawking.

"Daddy!" she screamed in her high-pitched soprano voice and ran over and hugged onto the unsuspecting Trunks.

"Uh, e-excuse me? I'm sorry, I think you've got me mistaken, kid. I don't even have a girlfriend, much less a kid," he said slowly, pushing her gently away. She looked slightly hurt. Why was her father denying paternity to her?

Bra looked between her older brother and the girl incredulously. "I'm so confused…" she muttered. "I need some facts here." She got up and put 'Musu-chan' back on the bed, taking control and looking oh-so-much like her mother as she did so.

"First off, what are your names?"

"Gohan."

"Vegeta."

"Musume."

"Alright, now we're beginning to get somewhere," she said with a satisfied smile. "I presume that you're all siblings." This warranted a simultaneous nod from all three.

"Well, if two of them are named Vegeta and Gohan, and the other one says that you're their father, Trunks…I'm sorry to say, but maybe they are related to you somehow—"

"Yes! He is our Daddy, I'm sure of it!" Gohan exclaimed, pointing at Trunks who looked something between horrified and shocked beyond all reason. "Our Daddy's name is Trunks. Trunks Briefs! And our Mama, her name is Pan Briefs! But she's not he—"

"What!?" The whole family exclaimed this in unison, three of them about to die of this major bomb being dropped on them and the other one, Vegeta, whose voice stood out over all the rest quite clearly, with white-hot anger bubbling up inside him. "You can't be serious!" only he went on to say. This time, Bulma was so well struck that she didn't stop him, but rather was stiff and seemingly glued to her spot. "Kakkarot's third-class grand-brat can not be the mother of my grand-brats; his stupid spawn can not be the next in line to take over my family's throne! It's an outrage!

"Brat!" he turned to Trunks, who seemed to be snapped out of his trance by his father's fearsome anger being suddenly directed at him. "I demand you tell me what you were thinking when you married that low class child!"

Musume, Gohan, and Vegeta winced and recoiled at the scary prince's voice. Trunks wore an expression identical to the children's as he also recoiled, his father's wrath obviously not his favorite thing. Vegeta backed him into a corner and lifted him up by the collar of his shirt, slamming his son's body against the wall hard. "Answer me, boy!" he yelled.

"Vegeta!" Bulma finally yelled, horrified. "Stop it! Don't you dare hurt my baby!"

Trunks didn't even have time to blush at the name his mother had used for him as he was sent into a hurried string of words to explain himself to his father…even though he himself didn't really know what was going on. "I-I swear, I'm n-not married to Pan! I don't k-know w-who these kids are, but I-I've never seen t-them before!"

"Daddy, stop!" Bra called, running up to her father and touching his arm. Immediately, the small man stopped, and Trunks was eternally grateful to his sister. Sometimes he wished he could learn how she got him wrapped around her finger like she did.

"Daddy, don't be angry with him," she continued once Vegeta was completely off of her elder brother. "Mom said the kids came in a time machine, so they're not technically Trunks' kids…" She trailed off slightly, wondering if she was making any sense. Thankfully, Bulma picked up and broke out into a grin.

"…They're Mirai Trunks' kids…" she said with a squeal. "I'm going to be a grandma in the future!"

"Shut up, onna," Vegeta ordered, getting him a glare from the euphoric genius of the room. "That still doesn't stop the fact that they're also Kakkarot's great-grand brats." Bra spoke up again then to put in her two cents.

"Does blood really matter all that much? I mean, if Trunks and Pan-chan got married and had kids…that would make a bunch of three-quarter Saiya-jins. That's better blood that either Trunks or I have by ourselves…And I know that you don't want to see the race die, so shouldn't that be more important—having children endowed both with strength and thick Saiya-jin blood—than sucking up your pride and allowing our families to mix? I mean…well, I always knew that it would happen sooner or later…" The girl hid a blush right then that only her brother caught onto and he knew immediately that Bra was not just thinking about he and Pan…the idea of which still didn't sit well on him.

Vegeta seemed to be contemplating. Trunks would not keep the issue going for now if his father would agree. First off, these children probably didn't need to hear him denying that he didn't love their future mother or him claiming mistaken paternity for them. Second, it might just make his father switch over his decision, and he really didn't want to have any more meetings with the wall tonight.

The whole family let out a great sigh of relief when the prince finally scoffed, a prelude to his exit from the room. He had too much pride to ever outright admit that someone else was right for once, so just getting that scoff out of him meant that he agreed without him saying it. Bulma smiled and turned to the children who sat obediently on the bed, the shock of everything finally getting to them, it seemed. Her eyes sparkled in happiness, seeing these kids in a new light. She wanted to take them out and buy them all sorts of candy and cute clothes and spoil them and…

"Excuse me, ma'am, are you alright?" Gohan asked her , perplexed by his 'grandmother's' odd gleam.

Bra grinned. "She's just fine. I think she's just a little excited at the thought of having grandkids to take care of."

Musume inched closer to Bulma and put on her sweetest smile. "I don't mind you spoiling me…" she said in a sugary voice. "Can we go shopping, gramma?"

Bulma squealed and brought the girl into her arms. "Oh, you're just so precious! Of course we can go shopping! First thing tomorrow! Ooh, I'll dress you up in all sorts of pretty things and buy you whatever you want!" In the midst of the prospect of bring treated like a princess, Musume at least had temporarily forgotten any withdrawal from her parents. Vegeta and Gohan merely rolled their eyes at her. They didn't need any of those things that their sister adored so much; all they needed was some new training gear and they would be content.

"Mom, I'm sorry to ruin your cloud of happiness, but isn't trying to devise a way to get in touch with their parents more important than pampering them right now?" Trunks asked. Bra smacked him in the shoulder.

"Be quiet! I want to go shopping too!"

"I just took you shopping today! Isn't that enough for at least a few days!?" he asked, exasperated. "Besides…well, you're Panny's best friend…shouldn't you tell her what's going on?"

"Me tell her? Oh, no, Niichan. These are your future kids, not mine. It's your responsibility to tell her."

"What!? No! I can't do that! That'd be too uncomfortable!"

"Well I'm sorry to say, but you'd better get used to that discomfort, because I have a feeling that it's not the worst thing that's going to come out of this."

The lavender-haired career man sighed and put his head in his hands. "You alright, Trunks?" Bra finally asked after a few long moments of silence.

"I'm going to bed," he said shortly, sounding infinitely like his father, and he left the room without another word.

Bulma and Bra looked at the door as it closed behind him, both worried about him and both realizing how difficult that this would be on the youngest man of the family. The tension was only broken by Vegeta letting out a large yawn. "It's midnight…Can we go to sleep now?" he asked Bulma.

"Of course…I'll fix up the guest rooms for you kids and you can all get a good rest…Bra, help me?"

The teenager nodded, and motioned for Musume to follow her while her mother took Gohan and Vegeta by the hands and led them off…

* * *

"I don't understand it; that old machine was in complete disrepair from what I could tell…"

"It was supposed to have been at least," Trunks picked up, putting an arm over Pan's shoulder. Their ordeal over the last twenty-four hours had taken a lot of energy out of both of the parents. First, Pan had to convince her spouse to help her to continue to look for their missing children. He had been difficult and very emotional the rest of the day, but somehow she had been able to keep up her optimism and patience through it all. He had almost become too much to bear for her—after all, she had been battling to keep her own emotions down as well—and more than once she had almost lost her temper at him. Every time, she had to tell herself that she understood his pain and that her getting frustrated would only make things worse.

Finally, they had about given up. They had searched everywhere in the compound, and still there was no sign of the youths. Trunks' stormy mood had worsened enormously, her optimism was thoroughly tainted with discouragement and even Kaeida had sensed something wrong, tears springing to her eyes nonstop throughout the last hour or so. Knowing that they couldn't search forever, they resigned back to the lab…to find nothing there.

Pan hadn't yet decided if that was a good kind of nothing or a bad kind of nothing; all she knew was that the old time machine was gone. Completely and utterly _disappeared._

She was caught somewhere between relief that she had found what had happened to her children and panic that she technically didn't know what had happened to her children. They didn't know how to operate the machine, so they could be in absolutely any timeline…ever. That was a lot of timelines. The thought was positively dizzying and she felt herself leaning onto Trunks' shoulder.

"I suppose the engines were still intact, even after so long. That's probably the only thing, though," he said. He shifted his weight to better support her.

"No," Pan said slowly. A tiny light bulb was going off in her head slowly in this realization. "No, it wasn't!" she exclaimed, jumping back from him. "That's right! The radio is still working!"

"Are you serious?" he said, looking just as excited now as his mate. "Yes, I remember you telling me that, now that I think of it…Do you know what this means!?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders, his euphoria taking hold of him. If she weren't a demi-Saiya-jin, she probably wouldn't have been able to stand the strength of his grip, which was tighter now because he was being more careless. Ignoring it, she stopped him, holding up a finger to his lips and slipping out of his grasp.

"Not so fast. Now we've got to take into account a number of things that could go wrong," she told him. She walked over to the panel and began typing madly, her fingers flying over the keys at a blinding speed. "First of all, that thing is ancient. I've got no doubt that your mother's machines still have the ability to contact it, but it might not have the ability to receive the transmission."

"I don't think that will be much of a problem. Even if video doesn't work, audio should work fine," Trunks told her. Her walked over and leaned over her, even though he knew she hated it when people hovered over her work. He had to sate his appetite for knowledge of what was going on and he couldn't help that.

"That brings me to my second point. Depending upon how far back they've gone, it'll be harder and harder to reach them clearly. If I'm calculating this right, with time and quality deterioration of the device, they have to have traveled back less time them you did," she said, almost to herself. She resisted the urge to swat him away from her work. He was just concerned and that she understood better than anyone could imagine, so she allowed him to continue his annoying hovering. "The furthest they could have traveled without losing radio contact is…" she typed in the numbers and the product came up on the screen, "about 25 years back into the old timeline."

He counted some stuff up in his head. "That's about right. That would be a year or so after I left if my 'present' self is around 26."

"He'd be turning 26 soon, if that's what you mean. Your birthday is coming up."

"Same difference. Anyway, let's cut the chat. I know that there's not a good chance that we'll be able to get a hold of them, but we've got to try anyway."

"That's just what I was doing. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that I already set the frequencies," she said, slightly irritated. "What's the point of me allowing you to sit on my shoulder and annoy the hell out of me if you don't actually learn anything from it?"

He smiled. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. She turned back around in her chair and began to push a few buttons and flipped up a couple of switches, and his anticipation grew with each click. 'Will it work, after all this time?' he thought, his hope suppressed by fear. 'Mother, will your machine reach my children?'

"Well…here goes nothing…" All they could do now was tune into the frequency and wait.

* * *

Ding-Dong

"Oh, Pan. Uh, come in," Bulma greeted and directed the teenager into her house. The woman hoped that she hadn't caught the tone of uncertainty in her voice, and thankfully she hadn't. She had to remind herself that the girl smiling at her now knew nothing of the events of the night before and that she shouldn't make her suspicious that anything was going on.

"Good morning, Bulma-san," Pan bowed respectfully. "Is Bra around? She promised to help me plan my party today."

Looking at her now, it felt so weird to think that this girl was the future mother of her grandchildren. Suddenly, she felt much differently being around Pan than she had before. Before, she was Gohan's daughter, and her daughter's best friend. Nothing much more. Now…she seemed infinitely closer.

"Yes, Bra's upstairs taking a shower. Would you like something to eat while you wait?"

Pan nodded vigorously, as with any other Saiya-jin, never able to pass up the prospect of food. Bulma smiled, trying as hard as she might to act as normally as possible. "Thanks. Mama wasn't up when I left, so I didn't have any breakfast."

"Well, I'll get you taken care of, dear," the blue-haired woman told her. "Vegeta and Trunks are already in there."

She motioned for the youth to proceed into the dining room while she went into the kitchen. When she got there, Bulma leaned against the counter. 'Trunks is going to hate me for having her go in there,' she thought. 'I know this is difficult for him, but he has to learn to accept things the way they are…and sooner or later he's going to have to tell her what's going on. She has a right to know. So he better get used to it, because I have a feeling things are only going to get worse before they get bett—"

"Hurry up with the food already, onna! You humans are excruciatingly slow when you wish to be!"

Bulma groaned, her mate's voice shaking her from her pensive state, and she gathered up the plates of food and went into the dining room with them. Purposefully, she brushed by Vegeta, knocking the fork from his hand.

"What was that for!?" he demanded, glaring. "Pick up the utensil you have caused me to fumble!"

"It was for being so horribly impatient, and I'm your wife, not your slave, so you're going to have to pick it up yourself, your Highness!" she retorted, and turned away to set down her son's plate…to only turned back around, puzzled.

"Vegeta, where did Trunks go?" she asked.

"He was acting all weird," came a female voice from the other side of the table. She looked to see Pan with her arms crossed. "He saw me and got all worked up, said he had something he had forgotten to do, and ran away. Whatever, though. I get first dibs on his breakfast."

Vegeta scoffed at the teenage Saiya-jin's obliviousness as to the situation. Bulma sighed. "My son is such a coward," she muttered to herself, and set down Pan's plate of food.

"Now, there's more of where that came from in the kitchen," she told them both. "When Bra comes down, she can make herself a plate. Right now I've got to go downstairs and work on the tim—something." Thankful that Pan was too into her food to have caught her near-slip, she decided that it would be best to be silent and just walk out of the room without attracting any attention.

As she left, she could hear Vegeta mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Feh, earthling women…" before he continued with his food.

* * *

Musume groaned as she observed her brothers' antics. 'We shouldn't be in here,' she thought nervously. 'Gramma is gonna catch us in her lab and we're gonna be in trouble. And it's all because of my stupid brothers…why do I let them drag me into these things?'

Meanwhile, to her great distress, Gohan and Vegeta were fiddling around with the many robots and other gadgets that Bulma had devised over the years. Her lab had been a major point of interest since they had arrived, as Pan had not allowed them to fool around din the other one while she was working. To their surprise, many of the things they had seen before were still there, but they were all previous models of what they had seen in the future. Nonetheless, it didn't take the most recent technological advancement to entertain the mischievous toddlers.

"Sugoi! Look at this, guys!" Gohan exclaimed. In his hands was an oddly familiar device to the children. It was small, round, and had a green screen with graph lines on it in black; the dragon radar. Recognizing it immediately, Vegeta rushed over to see and even Musume's worries were suppressed by her interest in his finding.

"Hey," Vegeta said, "That's the dragonball detecting device thing that Mom and Dad keep at the house, isn't it?"

"I didn't realize this thing was that old," Musume said. "It must be…" she began to count off years on her small fingers, but soon lost track and gave up. "..um, how far back did we come, exactly?"

"I don't know," Gohan replied with a shrug, setting the radar down on the table. "I didn't think to ask with everything that's going on."

Vegeta blinked a couple of times. "Yeah…to make it even worse, the timelines are different, so we may be further into the future than we would have been in this timeline, at least that's what I heard Daddy say…So that means…well, I don't know what it means. I do know that my head hurts, though."

"We should ask later," Musume said, brushing the topic off the floor as quickly as she could. Puzzled by her strangely rushed speech, the boys looked at her oddly.

"You alright, Musu?" Gohan inquired.

"Ssh!" she hushed them with a finger to her lips. "I think there's someone in here with us!"

In an instant, the two boys were on their guard, reaching out their senses to find the ki she was talking about. However, it wasn't an energy signature that they detected, rather, it was a sound.

"Uh, I don't think it's a someone," Vegeta said, his muscles relaxing slightly. Curious, the three began looking around the lab for the source of the sound. It was staticy and soft, like a television that was losing reception. With their sensitive hearing, they could also pick up something else mixed in with it—it was distinctly a woman's voice, trying to break through the storm of noise.

"Guys, it's coming from the time machine, I think!" Gohan exclaimed, proud at having found the mystery location. The three gathered quickly and they cautiously began to pile themselves into the one-seater. Though their sizes were small, it was still difficult to fit and the room was a lot more limited than they had ever remembered it being the first time.

"Move over, Sis! Your foot is jabbing my leg!"

"It's not my fault that you decided that you had to climb in with us!"

"I could say the same to you! This should be a no-girls-allowed zone. You're too whiny!"

"Me, whiny!? I'm not the one crying about my leg, am I, Vege—"

"Shush already!" Gohan told them, clearly annoyed with the sibling bickering. "I'm starting to hear the voice better!"

Sure enough, the female voice was beginning to come through, chopped up words every other second coming from the small many-holed box on the console. For a second, too, the voice almost sounded a bit like…

"Mama!" Musume shouted out, being the first to recognize their mother's voice through the radio. All of them, wide-eyed, gaped at the box from which Pan was speaking. In just a few seconds more, they could hear her perfectly, save for the occasional interference or two, and grins broke out onto all of their faces.

"Oh, Kami, I'm so glad to hear your voice, Musume!" Pan's voice said with no effort to hide the relief.

Suddenly, Vegeta lurched himself forward and grabbed at the box with his two small hands and with tiny tears in his eyes, looking infinitely like a young Goten. "Mama! Where are you!? The box monster ate you! Gohan," he turned to his brother and tearfully wailed, "I think…I think maybe, I think the time machine ate Mama! Do something!"

He grabbed Gohan by the shoulders, who only rolled his eyes and removed his twin from him. "And maybe you're a moron," he said. "Calm down already, Vege-chan. It's just a radio transmission, stupid. She's talking to us from our time."

With a look of understanding, Vegeta calmed down a little bit, but was soon just as shaken as before when another voice resonated throughout the small lab. All three of them spun around at once to look at the doorway, their little hearts racing.

"What are you kids doing in here?"

It was Bulma, looking like she was caught between whether to be angry or confused. Oh, the woes of being a grandparents… "I thought that I told you three—"

"Gramma, quick, come here!" Gohan cut her off, thankful for her to be there more so than worried about getting in trouble. He jumped from the machine and took her by the hand to rush her to where their mother's voice was coming. "Gramma, it's Mama and Daddy; they're contacting us!"

Bulma blinked, now really perplexed. "What are you going on about?" she asked, until she was cut short once again, this time by an obvious sound of movement from the speaker. A few short seconds later, she heard a voice that she thought she had heard the last of nearly twenty-six years ago…

"Hey, Mom."

* * *

**A/N: **Hey, Pan-chan here! Sorry about the delay in the release in this chapter. However, I had a ton of geigh shtuff to do during winter break, like, well…I would like to say that I worked on my flute chair tryout piece, but I didn't (heh ;)…well, like, opening presents! You know you did it too! So, shush! It's a good excuse! As always, review and tell me what you think. I'm open to suggestions and questions; everything but flames.

**Reviewer Responses: **

**Fan-Fic-Addiction: **I've never read that story, but I'll be sure to check it out after I'm done with mine. If it's alike it already, I don't want to make it any more so, so I'll try to keep my own ideas in my mind for now. ; But thanks for telling me. And don't worry, Trunks and Pan will get their turn!

**Sidel**** Sisters: **Thanks! Keep reviewing!

**Allie: **I'm happy you like it and I'm happy to have a new reviewer. I didn't update as soon as I would have liked, but hey…no complaining out of any of you! P

**Hellen**I'm glad to have you left wanting more! That's what I hope for. -

**PennyP**Thank you, Penny! I'll try to update sooner next time!

**ss****-dragon-lady**Thanks; please keep reviewing for me. I really appreciate it when people review!

**Halein**I'm glad you think so! I've been waiting to do a storyline like this for a long time, so I'm glad that it's being well-received!

**Miki23: **Hee, you really guessed well, didn't you? I suppose it wasn't all that difficult, but I love it when people guess at what's going to happen. It's fun both when they get it right and when they don't.


	5. Chapter Four: Suspicions Arising

**A Place in Time**

**Chapter Four: Suspicions Arising**

**By: SSJ Pan-chan**

Pan groaned in boredom as she lay back against Bra's bright pink bedspread and listened to her insanely girly best friend chatter on. The young tomboy was nearly lulled to sleep by the swift flipping of pages in the plethora of party idea magazines. Her friend had so many of them, it was like she had been waiting all her life to be able to plan this party for Pan.

Finally noticing that Pan wasn't so into her ideas, Bra put down the magazines and joined her on the bed. "Hey, you look like you need to get out. Want to take a break? Mom should have just come back from grocery shopping by now and I'm sure that Daddy will be downstairs ordering food to be cooked soon."

Pan jumped up and nodded vigorously. Bra smirked; it was always to easy to motivate Saiya-jin—just offer them a meal. She was a demi Saiya-jin as well, so she knew from personal experience.

"Alright then, what are we waiting for? Ikou!" Pan exclaimed, grabbing Bra's hand and running downstairs with her.

Since the night before, Bra was happy to say that the family had regained some semblance of normalcy; for example, Vegeta wasn't letting his newfound grandchildren interrupt his training schedule (although he let little but the prospects of sex or food do that anyway), Bulma was down in the lab again, more excited than ever to have the time machine back to work on, and Trunks…well, therein lied the flaw in their would-be average lives. No one had seen a glimpse of him but at breakfast, and even then he disappeared quickly and without a word to anyone. Provided, he had a board meeting early that morning and had to rush—for as they all knew, he wasn't one to wake up on time so that he would have some to spare—but they all knew that he was taking the news hard.

She couldn't blame her older brother, really. It was tough news to take, without question. However, she couldn't help but thinking that he would have to suck it up and eventually tell Pan about it. He was a man, after all, and as far as she was concerned, he could take it like one.

Now, for her best friend, Bra couldn't be happier. She had to bite her tongue a lot, half of the time having to resist calling Pan 'sis' unconsciously. 'I would much rather have my best friend as my sister-in-law than that girl that big brother's currently dating.' This girl, suddenly (since the previous night) a 'whore' to Bra's name was Kate. She came from a semi-affluent family in the United States, over in Japan because she had dropped out of college to pursue modeling and the Land of the Rising Sun was there the job had taken her. Trunks had made it a big deal when Bra found out about his romantic liaison with this American that she couldn't tell anyone else. Bulma was already on his case for the constant fall in company value and had told him that she'd take his job if she found about any relationships. But, of course, being Trunks, he couldn't help himself around the women and had ended up going against Bulma's will and Bra's advice and started seeing her.

Bra couldn't help but think of how funny it would be when the paparazzi got a hold of this story, which was inevitable when you were Trunks Vegeta Briefs. They seemed to know everything about him, sometimes before he knew it himself.

Trunks seemed to be blind to his tendencies, but the rest of his family knew them…he was letting his position and wealth get him all the things—or women—that he wanted, and he hadn't yet seemed to realize that these things weren't of the substance that he thought they were. Right now, he was living out his boyish dream of having all the fine toys and beautiful girls that he could get and with his possessions growing, his ego grew as well. 'He's almost unbearable to live with anymore,' Bra thought, annoyed. 'He's not the big brother I grew up with now, that's for sure.'

Brushing it off for the time being, the blue-haired Saiya-jin led her friend down to the kitchen where, sure enough, the aroma of food could be smelled. Both girls took a seat at the table and awaited the food that was sure to come out. However, when it did, it wasn't Bulma who brought it…

"Niichan?" Bra asked, confused. "Where's Mom? She always makes lunch…I didn't even know you knew how to cook."

Trunks let the comment roll off of him, slightly distracted by the presence of Pan. Pan noticed that he was avoiding her again and glared shortly in his direction before taking a couple sandwiches off the tray he had brought. The Capsule Corp. executive took a seat, looking weary and sighed, picking up a sandwich and chewing slowly. 'That's not like him,' Bra thought before nearly devouring two of the sandwiches in one bite.

After a long time, Trunks finally answered his sister's question. "I don't know what's up with Mom lately," he said, rolling his shoulders as if he were sore. "I went down to her lab to find her a few hours ago and she shut the door quickly and told me to go away. The ki—" he caught himself before he mentioned the children and thanked Kami that Pan was too into her meal to have noticed his slip up. "Well…the, uh…you know what I mean. They were with her. I don't know what's going on. Whatever, though. She just told me to go out to the store for her and buy some food."

Bra's eyes widened in mock shock. "_You?" _she asked incredulously. _"My _big brother actually went to the grocery store like a common person? No runners or anyone to do it for you? My goodness, the world must be ending!"

He glared, but Bra could tell that his heart wasn't into it. "If you must know, I did try to complain, but she told me to suck it up unless I wanted Dad in here yelling at me for not obeying her. It'd be even worse than usual since by not following her orders he would be without his precious food…Besides, I guess was hungry too."

Pan had just then finished and tuned into the conversation again. Determined to get him to talk to her, she addressed him personally. "By the way, Trunks, how did your meeting go this morning?" she asked.

He groaned, allowing her to infer that it did not go as planned. Still not meeting her eyes, he answered. "It was the worst meeting of my career. Our deal with both the Chinese and British companies fell through, which in turn affected our budget for the year, meaning that we're going to have to hold off another year or more to establish Capsule's overseas outlets like we had planned. Mom's going to kill me. The company hasn't been doing as well as it should have since she started watching over my work less closely. I told her I was ready to take it all on by myself and I crashed and burned."

Pan winced. "Ouch. So what do you plan to do?"

"I have to tell her what happened… Kuso, I don't need this now." He put his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair, trying to relax.

"Well," Bra ventured, "Why don't you ask Mom for help for a little while longer? You know that she'd set things straight in a heartbeat."

Trunks rolled his eyes. "You don't understand, Bra—I can't just ask her to help me. That would be admitting failure, and I'm _not _going to do that. I'm nearly 26 years old and I should be able to handle this on my own."

"But you can't." Bra finished for him. Silently reiterating the fact that he wasn't going to admit to defeat, Trunks ignored his sister's words and changed the topic.

"So, what are you guys doing today?" he queried.

"Bra's helping me plan my party because she's convinced that a normal party like we always have isn't good enough," Pan said with a roll of her eyes. Trunks would have laughed, had he been in a better mood at the time.

"Pan, Pan, Pan," he mock admonished, "When are you ever going to learn that no _normal _party is _ever _good enough for Bra? Making things into a big production is her purpose in life."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I'm letting her do it. I can't say that Grandma ChiChi is happy about not having it done the Son family way like was originally planned, but hell won't totally break loose as long as she gets to cook."

Bra observed all this conversation with a frown. "It's not my fault that I want something special for my best friend's sixteenth birthday!"

"Whatever," Trunks said, standing up and pushing in his chair. "It doesn't really matter, as long as the birthday girl is happy with it." He said this pointedly towards his sister, knowing that she'd make the affair into a big girly slumber party if it were totally left up to her. Bra caught this and stuck out her tongue.

Trunks didn't respond to her display of teenage immaturity and instead gathered up the empty plates and put them back into the kitchen. He left out the ingredients needed to make more sandwiches in case Vegeta came in later and was hungry—which was more inevitable than 'in case'—and set the dirty stuff in the sink. He came back into the dining room wiping his hands on a towel.

"I'm going to go call _Goten" _–and by the way he said it, Bra knew he meant _Kate_—"so I guess I'll see you later. Have fun."

"Bye," Pan bade him farewell, but he didn't answer, even though he was barely a yard from her. She frowned and Bra glared after him.

"So stupid," the blue-haired teen muttered.

"Hm?" Pan inquired, having not heard what she said.

"Nothing," Bra replied. "Just talking to myself… Let's go back upstairs, ne?"

* * *

"_Hi Mom…"_

For a long time, Bulma stared blankly at the radio, the voice—heard every day and yet not in years—sent shivers down her spine. How much just his voice had changed… She could tell so much from the way that he spoke. He was much older, definitely, and he sounded more mature…she noted not without some regret that he also sounded much more depressed than he had been when she last saw him.

"How are you, Trunks?" she asked, a hint of oncoming tears in her tone. He chuckled a little at the manner of her voice and she felt them threatening to spring into her eyes. She had missed him so much…

"Don't cry, Mom," he told her as if he could see her. She laughed and she could almost feel his smile on the other side. "I'm fine. _We're_ fine. How are you doing? I hear that you've been chosen as babysitter for a while."

Bulma smirked. "Yeah…but your kids know how to choose a good one," she winked and Gohan thought her infinitely strange to do when he couldn't see her. "They're angels, Trunks… I can't believe it—I'm a grandma!"

He laughed and nodded. "Well, I wouldn't call them _angels _quite yet. You haven't had a chance to really live with them." Musume frowned and made an indignant noise. "Anyway, I'm glad you're happy. Don't worry, we'll be there in a little while. Pan's working on getting the newer time machine up and running—you left behind a lot of detailed blueprints and she thinks she can figure it out."

"Well, I'll be happy to help any time," Bulma said. "Just contact me and I'll see what I can do."

Trunks paused a moment and another voice could be heard slightly. There was a bit of movement and he came back on. "Pan says that she'd appreciate that," he relayed his wife's message.

"Mom, I was also wondering something else…"

"What is it?"

"Well, I don't know how much the kids have told you, but there's a bit of dilemma that we're in right now. This time is falling apart and we're practically the last people left. I'll explain what happened later, but it's the reason why we were suddenly messing with the time machines."

"You want to come back," Bulma guessed.

"Intuitive as always," Trunks said with a sigh. "But this time…it'd be for good. We need to escape. We've got kids to watch out for and…well, we just had a baby three months ago whose twin was killed hardly after birth. It brought forth the realization that we can't possibly stay here."

Bulma opened her mouth to say something, but her son was now babbling on. "I know we're risking the chance of causing disruption in the timelines and whatnot and that it could really mess up some stuff, but we're hoping that with some explanation that we'll be able to prevent that and if---"

"Woah there," Bulma said, laughing. "Don't worry about it, Trunks. Do you really need to explain yourself? We'd be happy to have you and Pan and the kids here with us, even if there was no trouble."

Trunks sounded dreadfully grateful. "Thank you… It's such a relief to hear that."

"Any time," the scientist replied. "But, ah, Trunks…I've got to warn you… there are some people in this timeline who are going to be a little shocked and probably rather angry for a while at your appearance."

"Why is that?"

"Well, for one, Gohan probably won't be so happy that his little girl is married to someone so much older than her…"

Trunks blinked, confused. "Gohan? What does he have to do with this?" he queried.

"What? Didn't you know?" Bulma asked, a bit stunned. "Gohan is Pan's father."

"NANI?" a female voice came over the speakers and she could hear a rustling sound from the other side. Pan had pushed her husband out of the way and run to the radio. "Bulma…" she said, slightly out of breath, "you-you know my father?"

Bulma laughed, albeit a little confused as to Pan's reaction. "Of course I do, honey. The Son and Briefs families are close friends, after all…"

There was silence on the other end for a long time. Pan never answered, but Trunks finally did. "Sorry, Mom. I should explain… I never knew that Pan was Gohan's daughter—I always thought her last name was a coincidence seeing as I thought I would have known if Gohan had a child—but I guess…it all makes sense now." He chuckled. "I always wondered how in the world she got that Saiya-jin blood."

There came a sigh, and then the scientist's voice, broken up by static. "Look guys, I'd love to talk about this more, but the radio is dieing. You're going to have to get here before we can really talk." As she progressed through her sentence, Bulma's words were harder and harder to dictate.

"Mom? Mom!" Trunks exclaimed as they began to lose her. Realizing that there was no way to keep the radio working, he spoke hurriedly. "We'll be there as soon as we can, alright? Gohan, Musume, Vegeta, you guys stay out of trouble. We'll see you in a while!"

Tears in the sides of Musume and Vegeta's eyes, they both bade goodbye to their father's fading voice. In the midst of the excitement of their arrival, none of the children had realized just how much they missed their parents. Gohan, the only one composed, held a strong voice. "Bye, Dad. Bye, Mom. Fix the time machine quick, okay?"

Immediately following his finish, their only means of contact with the other timeline went silent.

* * *

"_Bye, Dad. Bye, Mom. Fix the time machine quick, okay?"_

Pan felt a stinging sensation in her eyes and stared fondly at the console which had helped her to communicate with her lost children and, in turn, had quelled her worries. She found herself hugging tightly onto Trunks, thanking Kami above the whole while that they were safe and in good hands…and that they would be joining them soon.

Trunks smiled affectionately at his wife, cerulean eyes sparkling with a happiness that he had imagined would never come again. Snaking an arm around her shoulders, he rubbed her back gently, soothing her tears away. Even though he knew that they were ones of delight. "Come on," he said to her, slightly tangling raven locks in the comb of his fingers, "Let's not turn into a basketcase, ne? We've got work to do, remember?"

Pan nodded into his shoulder and reluctantly pulled away to go back to the mound of papers awaiting her across the room. However, right before she could completely leave his embrace, he caught her hand in his and pulled her close again, kissing her soundly on the lips. She retracted herself and laughed a little. "I thought we had work to do," she said in a mock admonishing tone.

"We do," replied the lavender-haired man beside her, "But I had a burst of spontaneous hit me. What, do you have a problem with that?" Trunks made a fake disappointed pout appear on his face and she could do nothing but continue to laugh at him. He certainly was a character, this man of hers.

With another couple peals of laughter, the Saiya-jin shook her head in response. "Not at all," and without another word of protest, went back in to finish what he had begun.

* * *

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow to go shopping for supplies, Panny!" Bra called to her best friend from the top of the stairs. 

"See you," Pan replied, much more weakly than her constantly boisterous friend. As she made her way down the hallway and towards the front room, she yawned.

_It'll feel so good to be able to get home and relax, _she thought, relishing the mental feel of her soft bed and the coziness of the country home she shared with her parents. It was nice, sure, to have a mansion like the Briefs family did, but when it came down to it, nothing beat the homey feeling of a Son household.

Talking to Bra all day always wore her out. It was like she had a never-ending supply of energy stored in that petite frame of hers. Maybe she had more energy because she didn't fight… But even when she had skipped morning warm-ups with her father, Pan still got worn down by spending too long with the girl. It wasn't like that when she came to see Trunks, though. Sometimes she felt like she could never tire of his presence—so much more understanding and accepting than his sister, even if only on a deeper field. Bra understood and accepted her, sure, but it was only when she shared conversations with Trunks did her true feelings seem to show through. No one else had ever seen them but him…

_That's probably why we became such good friends after we returned from space, _she mused. _We fought all the time before then but now we're like brother and sister. I've recently realized…he knows a lot more about me than I ever imagined I'd tell any living soul. Something about him…Is that what the deepest form of companionship is, maybe?_

She allowed herself a chuckle at her thoughts. _I look too far into things… I should be a psychiatrist with the way I dissect feelings. _Rolling her onyx eyes, she continued on down the hallway, wondering why in the world that any family needed a house that was big enough to have a hallway this long. It was late and she wanted to get home and take a nice hot bath, read a book, and go to bed.

"_Aah! Go-chan, how dare you! You cheated!"_

Pan blinked. There were voices coming from the room just down and to her right—she recognized it as the living room. _What's going on? _she thought. The voices didn't sound like those of any of the residents of the house…they sounded young. They sounded like they belonged to toddler-aged kids. _Is Bulma babysitting? No…that doesn't sound like her. Why would there be little kids around here, then?_

"_I did not, Musu. You're just mad because you can't even fight right in a video game!"_

"_Shut up, I can too fight! Or do you need a reminder!"_

"_OW!"_

It sounded like someone had just been punched and from the resonating sound of contact it had made, Pan imagined it had been hard. Too hard. _No normal toddler is that strong, _she thought, now genuinely curious about the situation. Walking carefully so that her footsteps could not be heard, the quarter Saiya-jin snuck stealthily through the hallway until she was right beside the room she had heard the voices coming from. Tentatively, she peeked slightly over, keeping most of her body obscured.

What she saw was, to put it lightly, puzzling beyond all belief.

There were not just two, but three children. All of them looked around the same age, maybe only a couple of years apart. The girl, 'Musu', had a ponytail of thick, raven hair reaching down to her shoulders and, though she would normally never notice something like this, it was very prominent here… she had clear, crystal blue eyes. She knew exactly where she had seen those eyes before. Shaking her head to get the thought out of her mind, she turned her attention to the two others.

The boy who she was fighting with—'Go-chan', 'Musu' had called him—was nearly half a head shorter than his sister—or at least she assumed that's what she was to him. He had short raven hair like 'Musu's' and it was styled so that it was in Trunks' usual—_Oh my Kami, Pan, stop thinking about him! It's like I'm trying to make them into _our _kids with the way I'm relating them! _Trying to get her mind off of that slightly disturbing thought, she turned her attention to the last child.

The last of them, the unnamed, was wearily telling them to stop fighting. He looked like somewhat of the peacekeeper between the three, although Pan was sure that he had his share of bickering with them as well; nothing less could be expected of a boy so young.

There was something scary about this one.

His hair, his eyes, his face, his…everything. He could have been an exact replication of her grandfather and he certainly resembled her uncle Goten in those childhood pictures that sat around her grandmother's house. It was amazing how much he reminded her of Goku, though, and an indescribable feeling rose up in her throat. It felt almost like a sob. But it couldn't be…

"_Guys, stop it. You're being stupid…"_

The sound of his warning tone let off a very emotional bell in the young girl's head. "Oh Kami," Pan whispered to herself, putting her hands over her mouth. She backed up slowly until she hit the wall on the other side of the hallway. It jolted her slightly and brought her back to reality.

Desperate to get away from the sight of this little boy, Pan took off running through the rest of the house and didn't stop until she had to take off into the air. She powered up as much as she could, hoping to get home as quickly as possible and try to erase the mental image of the child from her mind. The subject of her grandfather's death was a very sensitive subject with her and although nearly two years had passed since then, the wounds were still fresh. With that in mind, and it having been so long since something—or in this case, some_one_—reminded her so strongly of him, it was difficult for her to bear.

When she had finally touched down on the lush grass surrounding her family's home, Pan wiped away her wretched tears and put on a good face for her parents. Trying to get control of her vaguely rampaging feelings, she composed herself a bit further before she went into the house.

* * *

Vegeta looked suddenly up, hearing a swift, windy sound pass by outside the door to the living room. "Hey, did you guys hear that wind pass by? I thought I felt a ki or something… Maybe it was a person…" 

Gohan stared at his twin oddly. "Uh, I didn't hear anything…why?"

"Are you sure you're alright, Vegeta?" Musume queried. "I didn'thear _or _feelanything either."

"_Yes_," he stated emphatically, "I'm sure… Maybe you guys were just too busy fighting over that stupid video game," Vegeta said, not without a bit of sarcasm thrown in.

"Or maybe you're just paranoid," Gohan retorted with a smirk. "Ever think of that?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes and then stuck out his tongue, making him a contradiction in himself. Once they had figured that he was done speaking, Gohan and Musume went back to their video game. Vegeta decided to sit out on the festivities again and sighed, leaning back against the leg of the couch. "I still say that I heard and felt something," he told himself in a quiet tone.

But what he was afraid to voice was what was really bothering him…

_It felt like Mom.

* * *

_

A/N: Because is rather picky about what I can and can not post in chapters any more, I will be posting all further notes and reviewer responses, etc. for all my fics in my livejournal from now on. Sorry for this inconvenience, but my fics have been getting deleted for some strange reason (though I have this uncanny feeling it may be someone just being a jackass), but one of them was justified as being deleted for being interactive (aka, having reviewer responses in it). Then again, the songfics that were deleted were reported because the 'content did not belong to the author' which is complete BS as I looked back and had disclaimers in each and knew for a fact there was nothing like them on before I posted them.

Anyway, because this site also does not allow me to post links, I'll post something to it. My livejournal can be found at:

www. livejournal .com / users / caelestiskibeth (without spaces, of course).

I also will have a rather important note in there regarding this fic (it will be in the entry with the reviewer responses), so please be sure to read up on that. I think you'll appreciate it :).


	6. Chapter Five: Of Annoyance and Hangovers

**A Place In Time**

**Chapter Five: Of Annoyance and Hangovers**

**By: SSJ Pan-chan**

_Bang-Bang-Bang_

_Bang-Bang-Bang_

_Bang-Bang-BANG-BANG_

Trunks groaned and rolled over onto his back to glance slightly at the door, which was violently shaking on its hinges from his sister's pounding on it. He knew it was Bra outside only because no one in the house was so obnoxious as to try and destroy his door at such an ungodly hour of the morning…but her. Rolling over again so that his face was buried in his pillow, he decided to ignore her and see if she'd go away or something. Getting up on a weekend at this time really, _really _wasn't an idea he fancied. It was the _weekend. _He was off _work. _What the hell could she _want _from him?

Bra was just not giving up. The hammering was still persistent as ever a good minute later and though Trunks briefly considered throwing something through the door and at her, he didn't want his father bitching with him about harming his sister. _Fuck, looks like I'm going to have to get up, _he thought, grudgingly, as he slowly threw his legs over the edge of the king-sized bed and made his way towards the door.

Just as she was about to rap again, he swung the door open, revealing to her a very livid face. "What do you want?" he whispered venomously. It was still early and he didn't think his parents would relish being woken up so early or else he would have completely cut loose on her. Plus, to get any more yelled at by his mother couldn't quite be called his ideal way to start the day…

As he had found out the previous afternoon, Bulma Vegeta Briefs was a very, _very _strong and intimidating woman when she was angry. Trunks doubted he had met _anyone _who could make him feel more like shit than his own mother could. Especially when the thing that he was being given a guilt trip over was the decline of her precious company.

Never again did he have to wonder why his father and mother had been able to handle each other (or lack thereof) for so many years…

Suddenly, out of nowhere, shivers of pain began to reverberate through his head and down his spine. "Hell," he cursed under his breath and held his head in his hands. _Ugh, how much did I drink last night? _he thought miserably.

Bra's mouth, which had previously been in the shape of a beginning syllable to an infinitely interesting obscenity, closed slowly at seeing her brother's pain. Knowing he probably had a killer hangover—judging by the complete lack of booze left in the house since the night before—she decided to be a little sympathetic. She could work with being a bitch while not yelling.

When he had finally brought his head up, he saw her settle her hands on her hips and he knew instantly that it was coming to him. _What did I do this time? I can't even remember…_

His inquiring look was all that she needed to begin. "Do you want to explain what you were thinking?"

"Thinking…about what?" he asked stupidly.

"You don't remember? What you did last night that you better be thankful I know about?" she replied incredulously, throwing her hands up into the air.

"Bra... Listen to me. I hardly know where I am right now, much less what happened last night. But whatever it is, I don't appreciate you coming to my door at five AM and waking me up for it."

"You should," he answered mysteriously.

"Why?"

"Look behind you."

"Bra!" he bit, about to lunge at his sister and strangle her. "I am _not _in the mood to play your games! If you've got something to tell me, then do it and _get the fuck out_!"

The blue-haired girl laughed quietly, only serving to enrage him more. Then, just when he looked to be on the point of murdering her, she crossed her arms over her chest and spoke. Trunks backed down, swearing that he felt something cold against his body but not caring at the moment.

"If you would have turned around like I told you, you may have—or maybe not, given your current state—realized that you have…well, a _companion _in your bed, to put it as nicely as possible. A companion that wouldn't bode well with Dad…and especially not _Mom._"

For the longest time, Trunks stood there staring unthinkingly at his sister's pajama-clad figure. He didn't understand… and his headache felt like it was about to explode his brain. Bra scoffed at her brother in a way that would make Vegeta proud. She looked at him as if he were the biggest idiot in the galaxy.

"Duh, Trunks. Last night after you got smashed like you did, in a moment of unexplainable lack of common sense, you called Kate over…and I don't think I need to repeat what the two of you did…" she said, glancing slightly over his shoulder to motion to the brunette still sleeping soundly in the bed. He spun around in horror, finally realizing what had happened. He didn't need any further explanation.

"Shit…Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit!" he cursed a little too loudly for comfort. Bra shushed him, warning him briefly that their parents were still sleeping. He only had time to wonder for a split second why his sister was so intent on keeping him out of trouble (usually she'd wait and get her amusement when Vegeta was in the middle of breaking his neck) before he was thrown into a panic, trying to set things straight.

He glared back at Bra, who was leaning against the wall casually and watching the events play out with a calm smile. "What is it, oh brother-of-mine?" she asked sweetly.

"What do you think you're doing? Help me!" he whispered.

"Not until you get some clothes on," she replied smartly. This comment elicited a great blush from the young CEO's face as he looked down and realized that he was completely. Stark. Naked. Bra laughed near-wickedly, never having seen the great Trunks Briefs turn that red.

Rushing to throw on his discarded clothes from the night before, Trunks mentally cursed Bra. _I can't believe she just let me run out of bed without at least a _sheet _or _something_! Where did her evil genes come from anyway?_

Finally decent, Trunks looked fiercely towards the girl who was becoming the bane of his existence very quickly. "_Now _will you help?" he asked, warranting a nod and her removal from the wall. "Start cleaning stuff up while I take Kate home! Dad's going to be up to train in ten minutes!"

He was right. The clock read 5:50, and Vegeta always woke up at 6:00 AM on the dot.

Bra snorted at being ordered around like some servant woman, but did as she was told anyway. If their father found out about this and Trunks got in trouble, her plan would be ruined…

While she used some simple ki techniques she had picked up from Pan to destroy the multiple bottles of liquor and all evidence pertaining to such things, Trunks went over to the bed and gently tried to shake his girlfriend awake.

"Kate, honey, wake up," he whispered. She mumbled something incoherent in English—which he couldn't understand anyway—and turned over on her other side. Glancing at the clock in dread as it ticked away the seconds, he tried, more desperately this time. However, as much as he tried, she refused to awaken.

_Damn, she's a deep sleeper…either that or she's really drunk, _he thought.

Giving up, he supposed he'd have to opt for just taking her as is. With only five minutes left to go, Trunks picked her up, sheet and all, threw her pile of clothes over his bundle, and took off through the window towards her West City apartment.

There was one good thing about her incapacitation, though. At least this way he could save time and fly her home.

* * *

By the time he had deposited Kate in her own bed and gotten back to the Capsule Corp. compound, it was only thirty seconds before six. When he had arrived back in his own room, his head was killing him even more than before (if that was possible), but was relieved to see that his room was completely clean of liquor, the sheets replaced, and the bed made. Despite his earlier hatred for her, he could only smile at his little sister gratefully.

Moaning in pain, Trunks collapsed back into a chair and closed his eyes. Through the murder the alcohol was doing on his mind, he vaguely felt Bra approach him.

"I've got something that will help with that if you want," she offered, taking his hand and urging him up. Grudgingly, he obliged, allowing her to lead him down the first flight of stairs and into the kitchen. When they got there, she sat him down at the table and went in the kitchen, telling him not to move from his chair.

_Like I'd even feel up to it in the first place, _he thought as he listened to the footsteps of his father upstairs. He cursed his acute Saiya-jin hearing as the sound of the blender running in the kitchen was like the feeling of salt on a wound or someone rubbing jagged rocks against bare nerves.

Around the same time that the agitating noise ceased, Trunks spotted Vegeta walking in. Bra also walked into the dining room at this time, earning a good-morning smirk from him while all the eldest got was a disgusted snort at seeing his condition.

"Good morning, Daddy!" Bra chirped, standing on her toes to give him a quick peck on the cheek after setting down a large glass of something orangey in front of her brother.

"You're up early," was all Vegeta said in reply to her before he turned his gaze to Trunks. "What's the matter with you, brat?"

Bra answered for him. "Nothing, Daddy. He just woke up feeling bad so I made him this—" she motioned towards the shake on the table "—to make him feel better."

Vegeta stared at it in disgust. "What _is _it, exactly?"

"Oh, just crushed-up aspirin, a few hundred grams of cysteine, some vitamin C and B, a banana, tomato juice, some strawberries, honey, orange juice, milk, salt, and a bit of nutmeg," she told him just as Trunks was taking his first sip. Upon hearing the contents of his mystery cure, the younger male Saiya-jin immediately spit it out over the table and coughed, looking at his sister in horror.

"What the hell are you making me drink? Poisoning me isn't going to _help _with anything!" he yelled. Bra glared.

"Just trust me on this one, shut up, and drink it," she commanded, snapping. "I'm not poisoning you—in fact, all of the things in that are too good for you and I shouldn't be wasting my time or anything in the medicine cabinet on you. All of that medicine it's loaded down with is very costly, so just be happy and _drink it._"

"Fine," Trunks spat back, taking another unsure sip from the shake. He stuck his tongue out to silently tell her that it was truly disgusting, but downed the glass anyway.

Vegeta was staring at the empty glass like it were some alien thing. "What in the world is that supposed to cure anyway?" he asked.

"Oh…" Bra struggled to find a good lie. "Just…ah…morning sickness!" She mentally slapped herself for her stupid falsehood. Trunks paled. _Bra, can't you find anything better to come up with? _he thought, mortified as the look on their father's face went a bit confused.

"Isn't morning sickness what your mother had when she was pregnant with you brats?" Vegeta asked. Both Trunks and Bra blushed simultaneously.

"Well, uh, it _was _what she had, but…men can get it too, like, when they're too stressed and stuff!" Bra lied again, covering up her previous.

Vegeta stared at his daughter as if she were going insane, but decided to brush it off. What did he know? He didn't care about these human ailments. "Whatever. I've wasted enough time in here. I'm going to train," he told them shortly, wasting no time in stalking off to the back yard, where the Gravity Chamber stood.

Once he was safely out of earshot, Trunks turned on his little sister.

"_Morning sickness?"_ he exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. Bra laughed nervously.

"Hey, I couldn't say that you were hung over. I think you should be pretty damn thankful to me," she said in her defense. "So, how does your head feel?"

Trunks had been too busy fretting over Bra's lie to notice the complete diminishing of his headache from before. He looked at her in shock. "I feel…it's gone…That's amazing. You were right, it the remedy really did work."

However, his look of wonder was quickly enough replaced by one of suspicion.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" she asked uncomfortably.

"I've got two questions," he began. Now that he could think straight again, there were some things that he wanted to know.

"Uh, shoot, I guess."

"First of all," Trunks said, licking his lips, "How did _you_ get a remedy for a hangover? And secondly, why are you all of a sudden so anxious to keep me out of trouble? What's up your sleeve?"

"To answer your first question," she said tightly, "Mom keeps a recipe for a hangover-curing milkshake in the medicine cabinet. You're not the only one that gets stressed enough over work to drink. So stop thinking what I know you're thinking—alcohol is vile and I don't ever intend on participating in such acts as consuming it.

"And to answer your other question…well, this time there were some circumstances that compelled be to believe that we could both benefit from my helping you."

He raised a lavender eyebrow at her. "How so?" he asked skeptically.

"Well, as you know, Pan-chan and I need to get out today to get the things we need for her birthday party… so I thought… a favor might repay a favor. I help you out and continue to keep your little late-night rendezvous with Kate a secret…and you drive us around today. How's that sound for a deal?" she asked, a grin crossing her features. Bra knew that there was no way he could say no to her unless he wanted to suffer a very slow and painful death.

Trunks' face dropped. Was he being conned? Was he being blackmailed by his younger sister? How did she get to be so damn devious? She knew how to get anything… from their mother, from their father, and now…from him too. For a long time, he glared hard at her.

"You little _bitch,_" he whispered vehemently. Thoroughly dismayed, he stood up from the table, not bothering to push his chair in, and started back upstairs.

Bra smiled sweetly at his back. "So I take that as a 'Yes, Bra-chan, I would adore taking you!'?" she said more than asked. He grunted some obscenity in response and she giggled.

"Good, then! We're picking up Pan-chan in two hours exactly! Don't be late!" her voice sung, and she ran past him, up to her room, to begin getting ready.

He was almost halfway up the stairs when he stopped dead in his tracks, realizing something. _Did I just agree to see Pan, _he asked himself miserably, and hung his head low.

"This day just keeps getting better and better," he groaned.

* * *

_Waaaaaaaa-h!_

The piercing cry of a baby permeated the previous silence in the lab. Looking over, Pan sighed and put down her work, going over to calm down Kaeida. Just when she was getting somewhere, the little girl always began crying for something… She knew that this was how babies were and that she should already be used to it, but this time machine was going to take a lot longer than expected to finish if she couldn't have a free second to herself.

The young mother sighed and tried to rock the little girl back to sleep, singing a song as she went on. "_Tomodachi ni de gami wakaku to kimi tei ni, sure sure kotoba ga tete kureba ii no ni. Mou sukoshi otagai wo shirina uni wa chika una ga hoshi ni_," she chanted softly the age-old song. In her mind, Pan could hear the soft, warm voice of her mother singing it to her and smiled. Though her mother was nothing more than a distant memory to the now-woman, she could still hear her voice, if only she remembered that song…

Pan continued on with the song until her acute hearing picked up quiet footsteps behind her. Turning around lithely, as not to disturb the near-slumbering child in her arms, Pan saw her husband and gave him a calm smile, if not rather marred by fatigue. He returned the smile, but his was laced with worry.

Approaching her slowly, Trunks used a soft hand to brush behind her ear the raven locks that had strayed from her messy bun. Briefly, his crystalline blue eyes ventured down to their child, then went back up to her.

"Pan, why don't you get some sleep?" he asked her. "It's been more than 24 hours since you last saw a bed. Let me take over for you for a while. I'll keep going on with the machine and watch Kaeida."

She frowned. "What if she wants to eat? As confident as you sound, I'm quite sure that you can't give her that," she said wryly.

Trunks shook his head. "Don't worry. She can survive off of formula for a few hours."

"Trunks, don't worry about it. I'm fine. I've pulled longer shifts than this."

"Pan," he said, warning tones in his voice.

"Trunks," she returned in the same tone.

They stared at each other for a long time, each trying to wear the other down. Finally, it was Trunks who spoke.

"Please? Just for a few hours? You're not going to be any use to anyone if you're too tired to think, you know," he attempted to reason.

"I'm not too tired," she retorted, but it was an obvious lie. "I can think just fine."

He raised a skeptical lavender eyebrow. "Then why is it that you're no further on the time machine than you were when I came in two hours ago?"

"I've also had to look after the baby."

"That may be true, but even I could have gotten further than you did and we both know how horrible I am at calming down kids."

Although it was a joke, neither of them even so much as cracked a smile. The couple fell into silence once more. All that could be heard in the lab were the sounds of the napping infant shifting in her mother's arms and the gentle mechanical hum emanating from the large computer on the console.

"Please?" Trunks tried one last time, his voice full of beseeching tones. Pan gave off an exasperated sigh. She didn't answer him for a moment, just glared hard at him. After nearly two minutes, he was still not giving in, barely even blinking.

"Fine," she consented, resigned. As carefully as possible, she handed Kaeida over to her partner, placing her gently and securely in her father's arms. "But _only _for a few hours. And I'm spending some of that time taking a shower."

Her husband nodded and readily agreed with her guidelines, just happy he was getting her to sleep, even if it was only for a couple of fleeting hours. Whatever either of them could get was precious, even if Pan did not seem to acknowledge it as such.

Before she left the lab, the demi Saiya-jin gave her pervious work a quick once-over, making mental notes of where she was. She knew that Trunks would not get very far; after all, he had said it himself—he wasn't exactly a pro at playing the part of babysitter. That had been proven many, _many _times before.

Growing impatient with his wife, Trunks went over and physically pushed her out the door with his free hand. "Go!" he commanded, ignoring her indignant look. With one final huff, Pan stalked out and into the hallway in search of a bathroom that hopefully wasn't totally decimated.

* * *

"Panny, wake up!" Videl called up the stairs in the direction of her daughter's room. For a second, she heard some rustling around, then soft footsteps against wood flooring and finally, a figure appeared at the top of the stairs. It held a face full of weary irritation.

"Mom, do you _know _what time it is?" Pan asked, exasperated. _It's 8:30 AM! What does she want from me?_

"Don't you talk to me like that, young lady, and yes, I am well aware of what time it is," Videl responded, putting her hands on her hips. "It's about time you woke up."

"_Why?_" she shot back, trying harder this time to keep the smart tone out of her voice but failing miserably. Videl gave her a glare that could kill and she noted that she would probably be better off silent.

"Well, for one, you're going shopping with Bra and Trunks today…" she reminded her. "Bra-chan just called a few minutes ago to make sure that you were up and to say that they were on their way."

_When did she say we were going shopping? _Pan thought, trying to recall the previous day. Her sleepiness was keeping her from remembering well. _Doesn't she ever—_

A voice abruptly interrupted her thoughts. "G'morning Pan!"

"Huh?" The teenager focused back on her surroundings and found her uncle at the bottom of the stairs, beside her mother, chewing on a piece of toast. He always seemed to drop by around breakfast time anymore. From what they could gather, there was something having to do with a piece of the house wall, flower gardens, a toaster, and an energy blast. Pan really didn't care to know the exact details, but what she did know was that ChiChi had put her son on probation from her cooking for a while, so now he ate Videl's instead.

"Good morning, Goten," she replied unenthusiastically.

"You don't sound very lively," came her father, who had drawn closer to the noise of the conversation. Gohan adjusted his glasses, surveying his daughter. "You don't look like it either."

Pan started down the stairs, ignoring her father's comment. "It's too damn early to go shopping," she complained, forgetting to watch her mouth. Gohan, instead of placing blame on his 'little girl', immediately glared at his brother instead. Goten laughed nervously, turning to his niece.

"Heh heh… woah now, Panny… _I _didn't teach you to talk like that!" He said, loud and emphatic. Pan rolled her eyes and walked past them, into the kitchen, obviously not really caring at the moment. She wasn't a morning person. Seeing her departure, Goten ran and caught up to her.

"I thought I told you _not _to say that around them!" he whispered in her ear.

"Don't worry about it," was her somnolent reply. "He'll forget about it in about ten minutes just because it was me who said it."

Goten sighed, knowing it was true. Pan was the epitome of Daddy's girl's, only second-bested by Bra and her marvelous show of power over Vegeta. Gohan was a piece of cake compared to the Prince of Saiya-jin. But, that aside, his niece's title made it quite easy for her to be seen in her father's eyes as the innocent, sweet little 'Panny-chan' that probably hadn't been seen for nearly ten years or so.

The two sat down at the wooden kitchen table and were soon joined by Gohan and Videl. Pan looked at the plate of steaming hot breakfast in front of her and began to pick at it. Goten cocked his head in confusion. Never had he seen a Saiya-jin _pick _at food. It was just unheard of.

"What's the matter, Pan?" he asked, concerned. She looked up and blinked.

"What? Oh, nothing. Just not hungry," she said.

Gohan, overhearing, frowned. "Not hungry? That's not possible," he said. Although in normal conversation such a remark would have been taken as an insult, when you were as… different… as they were, it was taken as worry instead.

"I'm just not hungry, alright?" Pan said, absentmindedly stirring around her eggs with her fork. The room went into silence for an excruciatingly long moment before the demi-Saiya-jin decided to get up.

"I'm going to go get ready… Uh, Uncle Goten, would you mind helping me pick out something to wear?" she asked indicatively.

"Huh? But you never worry about what cloth—" He was cut off immediately by the urging look in her onyx eyes. She was trying to tell him something. "But…I guess if you want, I can," he quickly fixed his mistake.

Nodding, Pan started back up the stairs. Goten gave one last, longing look at his cooling breakfast and sighed, getting up. "I'll be right back," he told his brother and sister-in-law briefly, before following his niece up the stairs.

Goten came into her room to find Pan inattentively sorting through her small variety of clothing, more than half of which were training gi. _She's really out of it today. I thought it was just that she was still sleepy, but this has gone on too long. By now she'd usually be bounding with energy. _Groaning, he sat down in her messy bed. If she wanted to talk to him, which she obviously did, she would make the first move. Although it definitely eluded him as to why she had chosen him to talk to, he didn't stand still at the chance to help his niece. They had grown to have more of a friend/friend relationship than an uncle/niece one in the past two years, but she had never chosen him to play secrets with. That was what Bra was for, wasn't it?

"I don't understand him sometimes." Her voice shook him from his thoughts and he looked up, attentive to her.

"Wh—" He had been about to say something before she cut him off and began rambling.

"He was all buddy-buddy with me just two days ago and now suddenly it's like I'm the plague that I'm impossible to be with for more than five minutes! He won't even look at me, Goten, and I don't know why! What happened? We were such good friends and out of the blue he has a hard time even speaking a word to me! The most we talked was for thirty seconds yesterday about his meeting, then he left—just got up and left—without even responding to my goodbye! What a jerk! He hasn't been this…I don't know…_stupid _since…forever! What is his problem with me?"

"Woah, Pan, calm down…" Goten tried to pacify her, not having been prepared for her sudden rant. "I'm not getting half of what you're talking about…First off, _who _are you talking about?"

"Trunks, of course, who else?" she spat, still annoyed, and even more so by his name. "You should know—you're his best friend! Doesn't he tell you anything?"

It swiftly dawned upon him. So that's why she came to talk to him. Because it was Trunks she was having a problem with. She probably thought he'd know why he had been ignoring her. But he was still confused about something.

"Don't get offended, but aren't you acting a little too distraught over just Trunks? He's annoyed you before and you usually just go over and beat him up or something."

"What? I—" Pan had been caught off guard by his question and blushed a little, wondering herself why she was acting like she was. "I don't know, honestly. It's just… I guess because we've been good friends for quite a while now or something..? Please don't ask me those kinds of things. It's just how I feel about it and sometimes I can't explain that."

Goten nodded, understanding, but had to grin a little at the red tint that painted her cheeks. _So that's what's going on… _he mentally chuckled. _Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later._

"Look, Pan, if you want, I can try to talk to him," he said, hoping she'd feel a little better if he'd offer help. "They're coming over soon, right? I'll go with you guys. I don't think they—"

Goten was abruptly cut off by a fifteen-year-old girl jumping on him and enveloping him in a large hug. She muttered many rushed thank-you's in his ear and all he could do was smile and hug back. "You're welcome," he said with a short laugh. "Now," he pushed her gently back from him, "Don't you think you should try and get ready? You've got a total of about ten minutes before they get here and…well, you don't really want to go out in _that, _do you?"

Pan looked down and had to laugh at her current attire. Red and black striped pajama pants and a black top that had "FIGHT" in large letters over the front, all of which also looked about three sizes too small for the growing girl. She had refused to give this set of sleepwear up, though, having too much of a love for it even after nearly five years of owning it. "Yeah," she admitted. "I guess you're right."

"Well, then, I'll leave you to that," Goten said, hoisting himself up off the bed. He headed for the door, but was stopped mid-threshold by a pair of petite yet strong arms encircling his waist from behind. He felt a head rest against his back and smiled fondly.

"Thank you, really," Pan said.

"Any time. If you ever need me again, don't be afraid to call, you hear?" He felt her nod in response to this and, taking that as the end of the conversation, removed her arms from around him and left the room.

_Uncle Goten, you'll never know how good you are to me, _Pan thought with a little smile, and with that, began to prepare for the long day ahead…


	7. IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE!

**A/N:** This is just a quick note to tell you all that I couldn't get a hold of through email that I am back on after a nearly four-year hiatus and am planning upon rewriting and finishing this story. If any of you are still interested in it, I've got the revamped prologue up and am working on rewriting the first chapter and should have that up tonight or tomorrow. I know it's been a long time, so I'm sure most of you have forgotten about this story, but hey! Worth trying anyway, isn't it: I've gotten so many nice reviews from people asking me to continue this that I've been re-inspired as of late, so thank you so much to all of you who have pushed me to do this. I really loved writing _A Place in Time _and I do think it deserves to be written much better than it was, and to be seen through to its finish.

If you want to read the new version, go on over to my profile, where you'll find it under the name _A Place in Time – Version 2. _

Thank you all!


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